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HISTORY  .f 


CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

BY 

THE    COMTE    DE    PAEIS. 

PUBLISHED  BY  SPECIAL  APPANGEMEXT  WITH  THE  AUTHOR. 


Volume  I. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

POr.TER  &  CORTES. 


COPYRIGHT,  1875  BY  JOSEPH  H.  COATES. 


This  Volume  comprises  Volumes  I.  akd  II.  or  the  French 
Edition,  without  Abridgment. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FRENCH  EDITION. 


Much  was  said  in  France  about  the  American  civil  war  while 
it  lasted.  But  the  documents  necessary  to  a  full  understanding 
of  it  as  a  whole,  and  to  follow  it  in  its  details,  were  then 
wanting.  Since  that  time  public  attention  has  been  diverted 
by  the  events  which  have  occurred  in  Europe.  Nevertheless, 
this  war  in  the  New  World  may  be  useful  to  study,  even  after 
those  of  which  our  continent  was  the  theatre  in  1866  and  1870. 
At  a  -time  when  labor  and  contemplation  are  the  duty  of  all, 
no  page  of  contemporaneous  military  history  should  be  neg- 
lected. 

Having  been  kindly  received  in  the  armies  of  the  young 
republic,  which  remembers  the  support  given  by  France  to  the 
first  defenders  of  its  independence,  and  has  not  failed  to  place 
the  name  of  Bourbon  among  those  who  are  to  perpetuate  its 
memory  on  its  soil,  it  has  been  the  wish  of  the  author  to 
present  his  grateful  testimony  to  his  late  companions  in  arms. 
In  writing  his  personal  recollections,  he  has  been  led  to  describe 
a  war  some  incidents  of  which  have  come  within  his  own  per- 
sonal observation.  Notwithstanding  his  legitimate  preferences 
for  the  cause  he  served,  he  has  endeavored  to  preserve,  through- 
out his  narrative,  the  strictest  impartiality.  He  has  examined, 
with  equal  care,  the  documents  that  have  emanated  from  both 
parties;  and  if  his  work  be  a  reflex  of  the  vicissitudes  in  the 
midst  of  which  it  was  prosecuted,  he  believes  that  it  possesses,  at 
least,  the  merit  of  precision  and  sincerity. 


Paris,  September,  1875. 

Gentlemen  :  The  necessities  of  an  early  publication  of  the  trans- 
lation of  my  History  of  the  Civil  War  in  America  having  prevented 
me  from  revising  that  translation  before  the  present  issue,  I  must 
leave  upon  Mr.  Tasistro  the  responsibility  of  his  work ;  but  his  abil- 
ity is  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  this  work  has  been  accomplished  with 
care  and  accuracy.  It  has  therefore  been  agreed  between  my  pub- 
lishers, Messrs.  Levy,  and  myself  to  grant  to  the  translation,  since  it 
is  to  be  published  by  yourselves,  the  exclusive  copyright  in  England, 
according  to  the  forms  prescribed  by  international  treaties,  and,  in 
America,  the  right  of  giving  out  your  edition  as  the  only  one  author- 
ized by  myself. 

]My  History  has  been  written  rather  for  the  instruction  of  the 
European  public  than  for  Transatlantic  readers,  to  whom  every  inci- 
dent of  the  war  is  already  familiar.  I  trust  that  my  account  of  these 
great  events  will,  at  least,  not  provoke  a  too  bitter  controversy ;  for 
if  I  have  been  obliged  to  judge  and  to  censure,  I  have  done  so  with- 
out any  personal  or  jDartial  feeling  against  any  one,  with  a  sincere 
respect  for  truth  and  a  keen  sense  of  the  responsibility  which  I 
assumed.  I  hope,  moreover,  that  your  readers  will  acknowledge  that 
I  have  tried  to  make  Europe  understand  the  magnitude  of  the  strife 
which  divided  the  New  World,  the  extent  of  the  sacrifices  borne  by 
the  American  people,  and  the  heroism  displayed  by  both  sides  on  the 
bloody  fields  of  battle.  I  should  be  proud  to  have  my  share  in  rais- 
ing the  monument  which  is  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  that  heroism 
and  the  glory  of  the  American  soldier,  without  distinction  between 
the  blue  and  the  gray  coats. 

Believe  me,  gentlemen, 
,  Yours  truly, 

Iv.    p.    d'ORLEANS, 

Comte  de  Paris. 
Messrs.  J.  H.  Coates  &  Co. 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 


When  I  was  called  by  the  publisher  to  the  task  of  editing 
this  work,  I  was  at  first  doubtful  as  to  the  extent  and  limit  of 
my  labors.  The  English  version  of  Mr.  L.  F.  Tasistro,  an 
experienced  translator,  had  already  been  made,  and  was  placed  in 
my  hands.  After  a  very  careful  revision  of  it,  particularly  as 
to  military  details  and  technicalities,  with  which  my  former  life 
had  rendered  me  more  familiar,  I  found  myself  really  limited 
to  seeing  the  volume  properly  through  the  press,  with  scarcely  a 
comment.  The  very  few  editorial  notes  are  upon  points  of  fact 
or  statistics. 

It  would  have  been  unbecoming  in  me  to  argue  upon  contro- 
verted questions,  national,  political,  or  military,  upon  which,  after 
careful  investigation  and  mature  deliberation,  the  author  has 
expressed  himself  decidedly. 

Least  of  all  have  I  considered  it  within  my  province  to  say  a 
word  as  to  his  estimates  of  individuals  and  their  relations  to  the 
government. 

He  has  himself  said  that  his  history  was  written  for  European 
readers,  who  desire  to  know  only  his  impressions  and  conclusions. 
But  the  book  will  be  largely  read  in  this  country  by  people  more 
capable  of  judging  its  facts  and  its  philosophy. 

This  I  may  be  permitted  to  say :  He  has  produced  a  book  dis- 
playing careful  research,  cool  judgment,  and  a  manifest  purpose 
to  be  just  to  all.  It  is  vigorous  in  style,  scholarly  without  a 
touch  of  pedantry ;  his  battle-pictures  are  effective  from  their 
great  simplicity ;  the  battle  fights  itself  under  the  reader's  eyes. 
So  varied  and  skilful  is  the  handling;  of  the  narrative  that  the 


vi  PREFACE.  ^ 

interest  does  not  flag  for  a  moment,  even  when  he  deals  with  dry 
statistics.  In  a  large  and  philosophic  view  of  American  institu- 
tions he  has  rivalled  De  Tocqueville.  Although  his  service  was 
short  in  this  country,  he  gained  a  full  knowledge  of  the  machinery 
and  working  of  our  government,  and  was  a  witness  of  the  mar- 
vellous creation  of  a  colossal  army  out  of  nothing. 

He  has  thus  been  enabled  to  use  intelligently  the  large  mate- 
rials he  has  collected,  and  to  present  the  first  portion  of  what 
must  be  regarded  as  an  admirable  history  of  the  greatest  war,  as 
to  numbers,  extent  of  territory,  and  importance  of  issue,  the 
world  has  ever  seen. 

ISFot  one  word  has  been  altered  or  omitted  from  the  original; 
the  only  change  is  in  form.  To  bring  it  more  readily  within  the 
scope  of  all  AA^ho  desire  to  read  it,  the  first  two  French  volumes 
have  been  compressed  into  one  of  the  American  edition,  and  a 
similar  arrangement  will  be  adopted  for  the  folloAving  volumes. 

The  maps  necessaiy  to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  text  have 
been  exactly  reproduced ;  only  the  general  maps  of  large  sections 
of  country  have  been  omitted,  as  they  may  be  supplied  by  any 
good  American  atlas  Avithin  the  reader's  reach. 

The  French  metrical  system  of  measurement  has  been  retained 
in  the  translation,  because  it  is  already  greatly  used  in  this  coun- 
try and  taught  in  our  schools,  and  because,  although  on  a  scale 
the  transfer  is  easy  from  miles  to  kilometres,  etc.,  it  is  difficult  to 
make  the  transfer  in  decimals  throughout  the  text. 

For  convenience  the  reader  is  reminded  that  a  metre  =  39.38 
American  inches ;  a  centimetre,  the  one  hundredth  of  a  metre,  = 
.3938  of  an  inch ;  hilometi^e  =  .62  of  a  mile.  It  may  further  be 
observed  that  as  the  map  scales  are  simply  fractions  of  any  unit, 
as  60,000  to  1,  etc.,  distances  may  be  laid  off  at  once  in  our  mea- 
"oures  by  assuming  our  unit. 

Heney  Coppj&e. 

Fountain  Hill,  South  Bethlehem,  Nov.  9,  1875. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 


BOOK  I.— THE  AMERICAN  ARMY. 


CHAPTER    I. 
THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

PAQB 

Object  of  this  work  an  essentially  military  history. — Necessity  of  a  Pre- 
liminary sketch. — The  provincial  militia  in  the  Seven  Years'  War. — 
The  War  of  Independence. — Difference  between  the  volunteers  of  1775 
and  the  Confederates. — Their  analogy  with  the  Federals. — Organization 
of  the  militia. — Washington. — Formation  of  the  national  army  in  1776. 
— Conscription  and  enlistments. — The  national  army  disappears  after  the 
war. — First  attempt  to  establish  a  regular  army. — The  War  of  1812. — Its 
character. — Organization  of  the  standing  army  in  1815 1 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE  REGULAR  ARMY. 

Organization  of  West  Point  Academy. — Its  influence. — Promotion  and  the 
prerogative  of  the  Senate. — Formation  of  new  regiments. — Life  of  regular 
officers. — Discipline. — No  retiring  pension. — Organization  of  regiments 
in  the  various  arms. — Special  corps. — The  administrative  departments....     16 

CHAPTER    III. 

THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN   MEXICO. 

The  regular  officers  in  the  Mexican  War. — The  volunteers  nearly  all  from 
the  South. — Their  character. — Kearny's  expedition. — Capture  of  Santa 
F^. — Conquest  of  California  by  Fremont. — Battle  of  San  Pascual. — Doni- 
phan's expedition. — His  perils. — War  in  the  wilderness. — Fight  at  E,io 
Sacramento. — Capture  of  Chihuahua. — Return. — Battles  of  Palo  Alto  and 
Resaca  de  la  Palma. — Capture  of  Monterey. — Santa  Anna. — Battle  of 
Buena  Vista 30 


Vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE    IV. 

THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO. 

PAGE 

Landing  of  the  Americans. — Capture  of  Vera  Cruz. — Battle  of  Cerro  Gordo. 
— Sojourn  at  Puebla. — March  against  Mexico. — Campaign  of  manoeuvres. 
— Character  of  the  American  soldiers  in  that  war. — Battles  of  Contreras, 
Churubusco,  and  Chapultepec. — Battle  of  Molino  del  Eey. — Capture  of 
Mexico. — Ehd  of  the  war. — Its  influence  on  the  officers. — The  future 
generals  of  the  civil  war  and  General  Scott 46 

CHAPTER    V. 

THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  AMONG  THE  INDIANS. 

The  Seminole  War. — The  officers  in  the  far  West. — Their  rdle. — The  In- 
dian tribes. — War  on  the  prairies. — Expedition  against  the  Mormons. — 
Stampedes. — Role  of  the  several  arms  of  the  service  in  that  war. — Its  in- 
fluence on  the  organization  of  the  American  army  and  its  mode  of  flght- 
ing. — The  regular  army  in  Texas. — Tidings  of  secession. — Defection  of 
Twiggs  and  Van  Dorn. — Loyalty  of  the  soldiers 69 


BOOK  II.— SECESSION. 


CHAPTER    I. 

SLAVERY. 

Slavery  the  whole  cause  of  the  civil  war. — Its  influence  upon  the  white 
race. — The  whole  slavery  society  rests  on  a  lie. — Slave-pens. — The  slavery 
dogma. — Slavery  controls  the  whole  Union. — Organization  of  society  and 
property  in  the  South. — Planters,  slaves,  and  common  whites. — Elements 
of  military  organization 76 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS. 

The  South  had  Ion?  been  preparing  for  war. — Enlistm  mts. — Statistics  of 
the  white  population. — Illusions  of  the  South. — The  States  and  the  cen- 
tral government. — Powers  of  Mr.  Davis. — Provisional  army. — Difference 
between  Southern  and  Northern  soldiers. — The  infantry,  the  cavalry,  and 
the  artillery. — The  partisans ; — Mosby,  Morgan,  and  Forrest 90 

CHAPTER    III. 

THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

Supremacy  of  slavery. — A  possible  reconstruction  of  the  Union  for  its 
benefit.— The  Montgomery   Constitution. — King    Cotton. — Division    of 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGE 

parties. — Democrats  and  Kepublicans. — State  sovereignty. — Mr.  Calhoun. 
— Falsity  of  his  theory. — The  Federal  power  truly  national. — Prelimi- 
nary convention  in  1S60. — A  split  among  Democrats. — Election  of  Mr. 
Lincoln. — Meeting  of  Congress. — Secession  movement. — South  Carolina. 
— The  President's  hesitancy. — Secession  of  six  States  in  January,  1861. 
— Attitude  of  the  other  States. — Attempts  at  conciliation:  the  Peace 
Congress. — The  Montgomery  assembly. — Capitulation  of  San  Antonio. — 
The  last  measures  of  Mr.  Buchanan. — The  Crittenden  Compromise  re- 
jected   


107 


CHAPTER    IV. 

FORT  SUMTER. 

Inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  ]\Iarch  4,  ISfil. — The  Border  States  still  loyal. 
— Mr.  Seward. — Condition  of  Fort  Sumter. — Attempt  at  revictualling. — 
Bombardment  and  capitulation,  April  13. — Excitement  in  the  North. — 
Call  for  75,000  volunteers. — New  secession  ordinances. — The  part  played 
by  Virginia. — Destruction  of  the  Norfolk  arsenal. — Disturbances  in  Balti- 
more.— The  War  Democrats. — Butler  and  Annapolis. — A  new  call  for 
volunteers. — The  blockade. — Recapture  of  Baltimore. — The  habeas  cor- 
pus.— Capitulations  of  Indianola,  San  Lucas  Springs  and  Fort  Fillmore. 
— Lyon  at  St.  Louis. — Organization  of  the  Confederate  government. — 
Mr.  Davis  in  Richmond. — Military  preparations  on  both  sides. — The 
contrabands. — Beauregard  and  McDowell. — McClellan  and  Lee. — Battle 
of  Big  Bethel. — Occupation  of  Booneville  and  Harper's  Ferry 133 

CHAPTER    V. 

THE  FEDERAL  VOLUNTEERS. 

The  enlistment  fever. — Personal  initiative. — Character  of  the  volunteers. — 
The  true  representatives  of  the  nation. — Statistics. — Formation  of  regi- 
ments by  the  States. — Their  muster  by  the  central  government. — The  foot 
soldier,  the  mounted  man,  and  the  artilleryman. — Their  modes  of  fight- 
ing, their  defects,  and  their  good  qualities 172 


BOOK  III.— THE  FIRST  CONFLICT. 


CHAPTER    I. 

RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS. 

Geographical  uniformity  of  North  America. — Scattering  of  the  ])opulation 
— Scarcity  of  roads  in  the  South. — Want  of  supplies. — The  part  played 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

by  roads  and  rivers. — The  water  systems. — Basins  of  tlie  Atlantic  and 
Gulf  of  Mexico. — The  three  divisions  of  the  Mississippi  basin. — Net- 
work of  railways. — Divided  in  two. — Impenetrable  regions. — Estimate 
of  supplies. — Base  of  operations 197 

CHAPTER    II. 

BULL  BUN. 

Meeting  of  the  Federal  Congress,  July  4,  1861. — Position  of  parties  and 
foreign  intercourse. — McClellan  in  East  Virginia. — Rich  Mountain. — 
Laurel  Hill.-  -  Combat  of  Carricksford. — -Consequences  of  this  first  success 
of  the  Federals. — Movements  of  Patterson  on  the  Potomac. — McDowell's 
army. — Impatience  at  Washington. — Description  of  Manassas  and  vicin- 
ity.-^Beauregard's  army. — The  Federals  begin  their  march,  July  16. — 
Their  plan  of  campaign. — Difficulties  in  obtaining  supplies  on  the  march. 
— Fight  at  Blackburn's  Ford,  July  18. — Johnston  leaves  Winchester,  July 
18. — His  arrival  at  Manassas,  July  20. — Position  of  the  Confederates. — 
McDowell  leaves  Centreville,  July  21. — His  plan. — Passage  of  Bull  Run. 
— Fight  at  Young's  Branch, — Defeat  of  the  Confederate  left. — Desperate 
fight  on  the  Manassas  plateau. — Critical  position  of  the  Confederates. — 
The  arrival  of  Kirby  Smith  assures  the  victory. — Rout  of  the  Federals. 
■ — Flight  toward  Centreville. — Return  of  the  array  to  Washington. — 
Alarm  in  the  capital. — Inaction  of  the  conquerors. — Results  of  the  battle 
of  Bull  Run 218 


CHAPTER    III. 

PREPARATIONS   FOR  THE  STRIFE. 

The  North  stimulated  by  the  defeat. — General  McClellan. — Inactivity  of 
both  armies. — Organization  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. — The  general 
staff  and  the  administration.  —  Discipline  and  courts-martial.  —  The 
grades ; — election,  appointment,  and  examination. — Organization  of  the 
regiment.  —  Instruction  in  the  different  arms.  —  Mechanical  arts  and 
physical  labor. — Skill  of  American  soldiers. — Telegraphy. — Signals  and 
balloons. — Winter  quarters. — Post-offices,  newspapers  and  their  corre- 
spondents.— Reorganization  of  the  regular  army. — Creation  of  new  regi- 
ments   257 

CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  3IATERIEL  OF  WAR. 

The  quartermaster  department  and  private  enterprise. — Equipments. — 
Fresh  horses.  —  Transportation.  —  Provisions.  —  Rations.  —  Muskets  and 
Ammunition. — Variety  of  arms. — New  systems. — Rifled  artillery. — Par- 
rott  guns. — Rodman  guns. — The  projectiles  and  their  propelling  power. 


CONTENTS.  XI 

PAQB 

— Tlie  fuses. — Various  inventions. — Sniootli-bore  cannon. — Tlie  arma- 
ment of  the  South. — She  is  .supplied  from  Europe.— Foundries  and 
manufactories  of  arras. — American  and  English  cannon. — Projectiles. — 
Powder,  Equipments,  food 292 


BOOK  ly.— THE  FIRST  AUTUMN. 


CHAPTER   I. 
LEXINGTON. 


Situation  of  Missouri. — Cairo  and  St.  Louis. — Generals  Lyon  and  Sterling 
Price. — Geography  of  Missouri. — Sedalia. — Kolla,  Pilot  Knob. — Price  at 
Neosho. — Battle  of  Carthage,  July  5,  18G1. — Lyon  at  Springfield,  July 
13. — General  Fremont. — His  administration. — March  of  the  Confederates 
against  Lyon. — Engagement  at  Dug  Springs,  August  2. — Battle  of  Wil- 
son's Creek,  August  10. — Surprise  of  the  Confederates. — Routof  Siegel. — 
Desperate  struggle. — Death  of  Lyon. — Retreat  of  the  Federals  to  Rolla. 
— Proclamation  of  Fremont,  August  30. — March  of  Price  northward. — 
Engagements  at  Drywood  Creek,  September  7 ;  at  Barnett's  Mill,  Au- 
gust 30. — The  Confederates  occupy  Columbus,  September  4, — Grant  occu- 
pies Paducah,  September  6. — Inaction  of  Fremont. — Price  before  Lex- 
ington, September  13. — Siege  and  as.saults. — Capitulation  of  Lexington, 
September  20. — Fremont  marches  upon  Lexington,  September  27. — Re- 
treat of  Price. — Engagements  at  Lebanon  and  Lynn  Creek. — Engage- 
ment at  Fredericktown,  October  16. — Battle  of  Frcdericktown,  October 
21. — Battle  of  Springfield,  October  2o. — Fremont  occupies  Springfield, 
October  27. — Fremont  marches  upon  Wilson's  Creek,  November  2. — Fre- 
mont superseded  by  Hunter,  November  4. — Retreat  of  Hunter  to  Rolla. 
— Columbus. — General  Grant. — General  Polk. — Battle  of  Belmont,  No- 
vember 7. — General  Halleck. — Engagement  at  Little  Blue,  November 
10.— Combat  at  Black  Water,  December  10 317 

CHAPTER    II. 

BALL'S  BLUFF. 

Neutrality  of  Kentucky. — The  militia  and  the  home-guards. — Invasion  of 
Kentucky. — Description  of  Kentucky. — East  Tennessee. — West  Virginia. 
— Generals  Wise  and  Cox. — Generals  Floyd  and  Rosecrans. — Combat  at 
Cross  Lanes,  August  26,  1861. — March  of  Rosecrans. — Combat  of  Carni- 
fex  Ferry,  September  10. — Combats  of  Cheat  Summit  and  Elkwatcr,  Se]}- 
tember  12. — First  combat  at  Buffalo  Hill,  October  3. — Combat  of  Romney, 


xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGH 

October  26. — Engagement  at  Chapmansville,  September  26. — Sewell's 
Mountain. — Floyd  at  Cotton  Hill. — FJoyd  evacuates  Laurel  Creek,  No- 
vember 12. — Engagement  at  Beckley,  November  13. — Engagement  at 
Guyandotte,  November  9. — Second  combat  at  Buffalo  Hill,  December 
13. — Anderson  at  Louisville. — Buckner. — ZollicofFer. — Garrard. — Com- 
bat at  Wild  Cat  Camp,  October  21. — Engagement  at  Hillsborough,  Oc- 
tober 8. — Engagement  at  Ivy  Creek,  Nt)vember  9. — General  Sherman. — 
Engagement  at  Munfordsville,  December  17. — The  fortifications  of  Wash- 
ington.— Formation  of  divisions. — Position  of  the  two  armies. — Evacua- 
tion of  Munson's  Hill,  September  27. — Blockade  of  the  Potomac. — En- 
gagement at  Bolivar,  October  16. — Battle  of  Ball's  Bluff,  October  21. — 
Excitement  in  the  North. — General  Stone  and  Colonel  Baker. — Inaction 
of  McClellan.— Combat  at  Drainesville,  December  20. — Strength  of  the 
two  armies 367 

CHAPTER    III. 

PORT  ROYAL. 

The  Federal  navy. — The  Dahlgren  howitzer. — Reorganization  of  the  fleet. 
— Confederate  privateers. — The  crew  of  the  Savannah. — The  rights  of  bel- 
ligerents.— The  Sumter. — Captain  Semmes. — Burning  of  prizes. — Viola- 
tion of  international  law. — Sale  of  the  'Sumter. — The  J.  Davis. — The 
Nashville. — The  Beauregard. — Proclamation  of  the  blockade. — England 
recognizes  the  Confederates  as  belligerents. — Effective  and  paper  block- 
ades.— The  blockading  squadrons. — The  land  blockade. — Matamoras. — 
Effects  of  the  blockade  in  the  South. — The  part  King  Cotton  plaj'ed. — 
Chincoteague,  October  5,  1861. — Lynn  Haven,  October  9. — The  Missis- 
isippi  passes. — Commodore  Hollins. — The  ram  llanassas.- — Naval  combat 
of  the  Head  passes,  October  12. — The  Royal  Yacht,  Galveston,  November 
8. — The  Patrick  Henry,  at  Newport  News,  December  2. — The  Sea  Bird, 
at  Sewall's  Point,  December  29. — The  stone  fleet  at  Charleston,  Decem- 
ber 17.  —Mr.  Fox. — Pamlico  Sound. — The  Hatteras  forts. — Departure  of 
Stringham  and  Butler,  August  26. — Disembarkation  before  Fort  Clark, 
August  28. — Bombardment  and  capitulation  of  Fort  Hatteras,  August 
29. — Pensacola. — The  Jtidah,  September  14. — Combat  at  Santa  Rosa,  Oc- 
tober 9. — Bombardment  of  Forts  Pickens  and  McRae,  November  22. — 
Occupation  of  Ship  Island,  December  4.— Ocracocke,  September  17. — 
Combat  at  Chicomacomico,  October  4  and  5. — Dupont's  fleet. — The  army 
of  W.  T.  Slierman. — Departure,  October  25. — The  Sea  Islands. — Storm  of 
November  2. — The  forts  of  Hilton  Head. — Commodore  Tatnall's  flotilla. 
— Battle  of  Hilton  Head  and  capture  of  the  forts,  November  7. — Beaufort, 
November  11. — Tybee  Island,  November  25. — The  Warsaw  Islands.— 
Ossabaw  Sound,  December  12. — Edisto  Island. — Engagement  on  the 
Coosaw  River,  January  1,  1862. — The  Trent  affair. — Tlie  Confederate  com- 
missioners.— Captain  W^ilkes. — Stoppage  of  the  Trent,  November  8. — 
Effect   of    that   stoppage    in   America. — Efl'ect    in   England. — Military 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGB 

preparations. — Lord  Lyons  and  Mr.  Adams. — The  question  of  right. — • 
Mr.  Lincoln. — Kelease  of  the  prisoners. — Mr.  Seward's  despatch. — Gen- 
eral satisfaction 422 


BOOK  v.— THE   FIRST  AYINTER. 


CHAPTER    I. 

DONELSON  AND  PEA  EIDGE. 

Foote's  flotilla. — Mill  Springs. — Colonels  H.  Marshall  and  Garfield. — Com- 
bat of  Middle  Creek,  January  10,  1862.— Garfield  at  Prestonburg.— Crit- 
tenden at  Beach  Grove. — Schcepf  at  Somerset. — March  of  Thomas  and 
Zollicoffer. — Battle  of  Logan  Cross-roads,  or  Mill  Springs,  January  19. — 
Death  of  Zollicoffer. — Occupation  of  Beach  Grove  by  the  Federals. — • 
Forts  Henry  and  Donelson. — S.  Johnston's  army.— Peconnaissances  of 
Columbus  and  Fort  Henry. — Departure  of  Grant  and  Foote,  February  2. 
— The  iron-clad  gun-boats. —  Disembarkation  of  the  troops,  February  5. 
— Bombardment  and  capture  of  Fort  Henry,  February  6. — Foote  ascends 
the  Tennessee. — Johnston  evacuates  Bowling  Green. — Pillow,  Buckner, 
and  Floyd  at  Donelson,  February  12. — Description  of  the  fort. — Fruitless 
assault  by  the  Federals,  February  13. — Their  sufferings. — The  Federal 
fleet  is  repulsed,  February  14. — JNIistakes  of  the  Confederates. — Their 
sortie. — Battle  of  Donelson. — Fluctuations  of  the  struggle. — First  success 
of  Pillow. — Vain  efforts  of  Buckner. — The  Federal  line,  after  being 
driven  in,  re-forms. — The  Confederates  are  checked. — The  offensive 
taken  by  Smith.  —  Defeat  of  the  Confederates.  —  A  council  of  war. — 
Capitulation  of  the  Confederate  army. — Flight  of  Floyd  and  Pillow. — 
Effect  of  the  capture  of  Donelson. — Johnston's  retreat. — Evacuation  of 
Nashville. — Disorders. — Arrival  of  Mitchell. — Johnston  at  Murfrees- 
borough.  —  Evacuation  of  Columbus.  —  Island  Number  Ten.  —  Curtis 
marches  upon  Springfield. — Retreat  of  Price,  February  12. — Curtis  in 
Arkansas. — The  Ozark  Mountains. — March  of  Van  Dorn. — Combat  at 
Bentonville,  March  6.— Battle  of  Pea  Ridge. — Check  of  the  Federals  on 
the  first  day,  March  7. — Their  victory  on  the  second,  March  8. — Re- 
treat of  both  armies 473 

CHAPTER    II. 

SHILOII. 

New  Mexico. — Generals  Canby  and  Sibley. — Fort  Craig. — Flank  move- 
ment of  Sibley,  February  19,  1862.— Engagement  at  Fort  Craig,  February 
20.— Combat  at  Valverde,  February  21.— Fight  of  Apache  Pass,  March 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

24. — Sibley  at  Santa  Fe.— Sibley  leaves  New  Mexico,  April  12. — The 
course  of  the  Tennessee. — Savannah. — Grant  at  Pittsburg  Landing, 
March  17. — Johnston  at  Murfreesborough.— Buell  at  Nashville. — John- 
ston reaches  Corinth. — Engagement  at  Pound  Gap,  March  16. — Morgan 
at  Gallatin,  March  16.— Skirmish  at  McMinnville,  March  26.— Island 
Number  Ten. — Landing  of  Pope,  February  28. — Fight  at  Commerce, 
March  2. — Beauregard. — HoUins's  flotilla. — New  Madrid. — Point  Pleas- 
ant.— Bombardment  and  evacuation  of  New  Madrid,  March  12. — Piercing 
of  the  New  Madrid  canal.— The  Carondelet  forces  the  Confederate  bat- 
teries, April  5. — General  Mackall  and  General  McGown. — Evacuation  of 
Island  Number  Ten,  April  7. — Concentration  and  plans  of  the  two  hos- 
tile armies. — Arrival  of  Johnston  at  Corinth. — Position  of  Corinth. — 
Position  of  Pittsburg  Landing. — Want  of  foresight  on  the  part  of  the 
Federals. — Buell's  army. — The  Confederate  army  on  the  march,  April  4. 
— Bivouac  of  April  5. — First  day  of  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  April  5. — Sur- 
prise of  the  Federals. — Peabody's  brigade  dispersed. — Hardee  defeats 
the  brigade  of  Prentiss. — Sherman  before  the  church  of  Shiloh. — McCler- 
nand  repulsed. — Sherman  falls  back. — Prentiss  is  surrounded. — Death  of 
Johnston. — Engagement  between  the  forces  of  Hurlbut  and  W.  H.  Wal- 
lace.— Movement  of  the  whole  Confederate  army. — The  Federal  army  is 
repulsed. — Movements  of  L.  Wallace  and  Nelson. — The  park  of  siege 
artillery. — The  Confederates  checked  by  the  brigade  of  Ammen. — End  of 
the  first  day's  fighting. — Arrival  of  L.  Wallace  and  Buell's  army. — Re- 
newal of  the  battle,  April  7. — Nelson's  attack. — Cheatham's  division. — 
Buell's  army  receives  a  check. — The  engagement  is  renewed  along  the 
whole  line. — A  desperate  struggle. — Defeat  of  the  Confederates. — Sher- 
man occupies  Shiloh. — Eetreat  of  the  Confederates. — Losses  of  both  par- 
ties.— Their  errors. — Consequences  of  the  battle  of  Shiloh. — Enforced 
rest  of  the  two  armies 515 

CHAPTER    III. 

EOANOKE. 

Conflicts  of  power  in  the  Confederate  army. — Beauregard  and  Hindman.— 
Triumph  of  the  central  authority. — Levies  in  the  South. — Enrolments 
by  the  central  power. — Organization  of  the  Confederate  army.  May  9, 
1861. — A  levy  of  400,000  men,  August  9. — Measures  for  increasing  the 
strength  of  the  army. — Expiration  of  terms  of  enlistments. — Their  re- 
newal.— The  conscription,  April  16, 1862. — The  able-bodied  population 
of  the  South. — Extension  of  the  conscription  law,  November  1,  1862. — 
Discipline. — Consolidation  of  regiments. — The  depots. — The  Army  of  the 
Potomac. — General  McClellan. — Impatience  of  the  public. — Democrats 
and  Republicans. — Their  imprudences  and  hostility. — Mr.  Lincoln's  hesi- 
tations.— Committee  of  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the  war. — Plans  of 
campaign. — Difficulties  in  attacking  Manassas. — Total  force  of  the  Con- 
federate army  under   Johnston. — Plans  of  attack  by  way  of  Harper's 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAQB 

Ferry  or  the  Occoquan. — Projects  for  attacking  the  Confederate  batteries 
along  the  Potomac. — Lower  Virginia. — Plans  for  landing. — Urbanna  and 
Fort  Monroe. — Importance  of  Yorktown. — Preparatives  of  Burnside's 
expedition. — It  enters  Pamlico  Sound,  January  24,  1862. — The  order  of 
battle. — The  island  of  Eoanoke. — Disembarkation,  February  7. — Battle 
of  Koanoke,  February  8. — Capture  of  the  island. — Capture  of  Elizabeth 
City,  February  9. — Landing  on  the  Neuse,  March  12. — Confederate  works. 
— Fight  at,  and  capture  of,  Newberne,  March  14. — Occupation  of  Beau- 
fort, March  25. — Fort  Macon.— Engagement  at  South  Mills,  April  19. — 
Bombardment  of  Fort  Macon,  April  25. — Capitulation  of  the  same,  April 
26. — End  of  Burnside's  campaign .562 


CHAPTER     IV. 

HAMPTON  EOADS. 

The  iron-clads. — Mr.  Ericsson,  inventor  of  the  turret  system. — Captain 
Cowper  Coles. — -The  Galena,  Ironsides,  and  Monitor. — Description  of  the 
Monitor. — The  Virginia. — Tlieir  artillery. — Captains  Worden  and  Bu- 
chanan.— The  morning  of  March  8,  18G2. — The  Confederate  naval  divis- 
ion getting  under  way. — Fight  between  the  Virginia  and  the  Cumberland. 
— Sinking  of  the  latter. — Heroism  of  the  Federal  sailors. — The  Virginia 
attacks  the  Congress,  which  is  captured  and  burned. — Buchanan  is  wound- 
ed.— The  Minnesota  and  St.  Lawrence  aground. — End  of  the  first  day's 
battle  in  Hampton  Roads. — Effect  produced  in  America. — Second  day, 
March  9. — Arrival  of  the  Monitor. — Undecided  fight  with  the  Virginia. 
— Retreat  of  the  latter. — Consequences  of  the  battle. — McClellan's  plan 
of  campaign. — His  relations  with  Mr.  Lincoln. — Crossing  the  Potomac  to 
Harper's  Ferry,  February  26. — Preparations  for  the  maritime  expedition. 
— Council  of  war,  March  8. — The  army  corps. — War  orders  of  the  Presi- 
dent.— Evacuation  of  Manassas,  March  8. — Manassas  is  occupied  by  the 
Federals,  March  11. — Skilful  retreat  of  Johnston. — McClellan  relieved 
of  the  supreme  command,  March  12. — New  plan  of  campaign,  March 
13. — Arrival  of  the  transports. — Embarkation  of  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac.— Jackson  in  the  valley  of  Virginia. — His  fruitless  march  upon 
Bath,  January  1. — Insubordination  in  his  army. — Engagement  at  Bloom- 
ing Gap,  February  14. — Jackson  returns  to  Winchester. — He  withdraws 
to  Mount  Jackson. — Shields  follows  him,  March  18. — He  falls  back  upon 
Winchester,  March  20.— Stratagem  to  draw  Jackson  on. — Ashby  is  de- 
ceived.— March  of  Jackson. — He  attacks  Shields,  March  23.— Battle  of 
Kernstown. — Disposition  of  the  troops  on  both  sides.— Jackson  attacks 
the  right  wing  of  the  Federals. — The  Stonewall  Brigade. — The  Federals 
resume  the  offensive. — Complete  defeat  of  Jackson. — He  falls  back  upon 
Cedar  Creek. — Results  of  his  campaign. — Alarms  in  Washington. — The 
defence  of  the  tapical. — ^1^'remont  and  the  mountain  department. — The 
division  of  Blenker. — Banks's  army  corps. — The  garrison  of  Washington 


XVI  nnwTENTS. 

PAGE 

and  the  independent  armies. — Landing  of  McCIellan  at  Fort  Monroe. — 
McDowell's  army  corps. — New  dismemberment  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac 591 


NOTES. 

Note  A 631 

Note  B 635 

Note  C 636 

Note  D 636 

Note  E 637 

BlBT.rOGR4.PHICAL  NOTE s 638 


MAPS. 

The  Field  of  Bull  Etjn 219 

Belmont -. 359 

Fort  Donelson 485 

Pea  EiDGE 505 

Shiloh 523 

Hampton  Eoads 591 


THE 


GiviL  "War  in  America. 


BOOK  L— THE   AMEEICAN  ARMY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  year  1861  one  of  those  acts  of  vio- 
lence which  ambitious  men  are  often  able  to  disguise  under 
names  the  more  attractive  in  proportion  as  their  motives  are  most 
culpable,  occurred  to  rend  the  republic  of  the  United  States,  and 
enkindled  civil  war. 

A  coup  d'etat  was  attempted  against  the  Constitution  of  that 
republic  by  the  powerful  oligarchy  which  ruled  in  the  South  and 
had  long  controlled  in  the  councils  of  the  nation.  On  the  day 
when  the  common  law,  which  guarantees  alike  to  the  poor  and 
the  outcast  respect  for  their  individual  rights,  and  to  the  majority 
the  full  enjoyment  of  political  power,  is  violated  by  any  portion 
of  the  community,  if  the  outrage  be  not  severely  repressed,  des- 
potism is  established  in  the  land. 

Beaten  in  the  presidential  elections  of  1860,  the  Southern  States 
sought  to  regain  by  intimidation  or  force  the  influence  they  had 
exercised  until  then  in  the  interest  of  slavery ;  and  while  shout- 
ing aloud  the  words  "  Independence  and  liberty,"  they  trampled 
the  solemn  contract  under  foot  as  soon  as  the  national  ballot  had 
declared  against  their  policy.  But  success,  that  great  apologist 
of  predestinarians,  failed  them,  and  victory  favored  the  cause  of 
right  and  loyalty.  Then  it  was  seen  what  treasures  of  energy 
the  free  and  constant  practice  of  liberty  hoards  up  for  a  people 
fortunate  enough  to  possess  it  and  sufficiently  wise  to  guard  it. 

1 


2  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

America  had  already  solved  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems 
of  our  age  by  developing  free  institutions  in  the  midst  of  a  dem- 
ocratic society ;  but  no  great  internal  crisis  had  yet  arisen  to  try 
their  solidity.  Many  people  had  asserted  that  the  first  storm 
would  wrench  this  fragile  plant  from  a  soil  that  could  not  afford 
it  sustenance.  The  storm-wind  of  civil  war  arose,  and,  contrary 
to  these  predictions,  the  vigorous  tree  of  American  institutions, 
spreading  its  shadow  over  the  country  Avhere  it  had  taken  such 
deep  root,  saved  it  from  impending  destruction.  In  this  crisis, 
the  American  people  learned  to  appreciate  their  Constitution  everv 
more  than  they  had  done  in  the  past ;  and  they  proved  to  the 
world  that  the  statue  of  Liberty  is  not  a  worthless  idol,  deaf  in 
the  hour  of  danger,  but  the  holy  symbol  of  a  powerful  divinity 
which  may  be  invoked  in  seasons  of  adversity. 

Therefore,  although  war  always  presents  a  cruel  aspect,  we 
may,  at  least,  examine  the  one  that  has  lately  rent  America  with- 
out experiencing  that  profound  and  unmitigated  sadness  which 
the  triumphs  of  violence  and  injustice  inspire.  It  is  interesting 
to  observe  how  that  victory,  so  long  disputed,  the  results  of  which 
are  patent  to  every  observer,  although  the  causes  are  difficult  to 
unravel  from  a  distance,  was  achieved.  In  this  study,  as  import- 
ant to  the  soldier  as  to  the  statesman,  we  should  doubtless  take 
into  consideration  the  difference  of  institutions,  customs,  and 
many  peculiar  circumstances ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  we  should 
not  reject  without  examination  precious  examples  and  dearly 
bought  experiences,  under  the  pretext  that  what  has  succeeded  in 
America  cannot  be  applied  to  Europe. 

The  work  we  have  undertaken  is  essentially  a  military  history. 
We  shall  not,  therefore,  attempt  to  describe  the  constitutional 
struggles  and  the  political  events  which  brought  on  the  war,  a  nar- 
rative of  which  we  present  in  these  pages.  But  at  a  time  when 
the  misfortunes  of  our  own  country  impart  a  peculiar  importance 
to  all  questions  of  military  organization,  we  have  thought  this 
narrative  would  appear  incomplete  if  we  did  not  begin  by  placing 
before  the  reader  a  somewhat  detailed  account  of  the  resources  of 
the  two  adversaries,  how  they  made  use  of  them,  the  services 
rendered  to  both  parties  by  a  corps  of  regular  army  officers,  well 
trained  and  brought  up  under  the  influence  of  excellent  traditions, 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         S 

and  finally  the  improvisation  of  the  large  armies  which  sustained 
that  long  war.  This  preliminary  exposition  will  show  how  those 
armies,  finding  themselves  on  both  sides  in  an  analogous  con- 
dition, were  able  to  organize  and  gradually  acquire  a  military 
character,  without  being  exposed  to  the  disasters  which  both  would 
have  experienced  if  from  the  commencement  they  had  had  to 
fight  with  veteran  and  disciplined  troops. 

We  must,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  show  in  a  rapid  sketch 
what  the  American  army  was  previous  to  1861.  Although  the 
Americans  were  not  a  military  people,  they  had  had  occasion  to 
exhibit  certain  warlike  qualities.  During  their  short  history  they 
already  had  precedents  for  the  organization  of  their  national 
forces,  and  a  small  knot  of  brave  and  devoted  men  had  preserved 
from  oblivion  the  traditions  acquired  in  campaigns  instructive  if 
not  brilliant. 

Without  dwelling  at  length  on  the  wars  in  which  the  American 
soldier  figured  prior  to  1861,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  say  a 
few  words  on  the  subject.  The  reader  will  the  better  understand 
the  remarkable  movement  which  called  large  armies  into  exist- 
ence at  the  first  rumor  of  civil  war,  when  he  has  seen  how  volun- 
teer corps  were  formed  at  other  epochs  in  the  history  of  the  young 
republic.  After  having  followed  the  small  regular  army  to  the 
far  West  and  to  Mexico,  the  part  it  played  in  the  great  military 
organization  of  the  Federals  and  the  Confederates  will  be  under- 
stood. 

It  was  against  our  soldiers  in  the  Seven  Years'  War  that  the 
American  volunteers,  then  composing  the  militia  of  an  English 
colony,  made  their  debut  in  arms.  This  fact  may  be  recalled  to 
mind  not  only  without  bitterness,  since,  Heaven  be  praised !  the 
flag  of  the  United  States,  since  it  has  been  afloat,  has  never  been 
found  opposed  to  that  of  France  on  the  field  of  battle,  but  also 
as  a  remembrance  constituting  an  additional  tie  between  them  and 
us.  For,  during  the  unequal  struggle  which  decided  the  owner- 
ship of  the  new  continent,  those  militia-men  received  some  useful 
lessons  while  contending  with  the  handful  of  heroic  men  who 
defended  our  empire  beyond  the  seas  in  spite  of  a  forgetful 
country. 

The  soldiers  of  the  war  of  independence  were  formed  in  that 


4  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

school.  Montcalm,  even  more  than  Wolfe,  was  the  instructor  of 
those  adversaries  who  very  soon  undertook  to  avenge  him.  It  was 
while  endeavoring  to  supplant  the  French  on  the  borders  of  the 
Ohio,  by  long  and  frequently  disastrous  expeditions,  that  the 
founder  of  the  American  nation  gave  the  first  indications  of  that  in- 
defatigable energy  which  in  the  end  triumphed  over  every  obstacle. 
It  was  the  example  of  the  defenders  of  Fort  Carillon,  in  holding 
an  English  army  in  check  from  behind  a  miserable  breastwork, 
which  inspired  at  a  later  period  the  combatants  of  Bunker  Hill. 
It  was  the  surrender  of  Washington  at  Fort  Necessity,  and  the 
disaster  of  Braddock  at  Fort  Duquesne,  which  taught  the  future 
conquerors  of  Saratoga  how,  in  those  wild  countries,  to  embarrass 
the  march  of  an  enemy,  to  cut  oif  his  supplies,  to  neutralize  his 
advantages,  until,  at  last,  he  was  either  captured  or  annihilated. 

So  that,  although  at  first  despised  in  the  aristocratic  ranks  of 
the  regular  English  army,  the  provincial  militia,  as  they  were 
then  called,  soon  learned  how  to  make  themselves  appreciated, 
and  to  compel  respect  from  their  enemies.  In  that  war,  so  differ- 
ent from  those  waged  in  Europe,  in  those  conflicts  carried  on  in 
the  midst  of  a  wild  and  wooded  country,  they  already  displayed 
all  the  qualities  which  have  since  characterized  the  American — 
shrewdness,  strength,  valor,  and  personal  intelligence. 

These  qualities  were  again  displayed  when,  fifteen  years  later, 
they  took  up  arms  once  more,  under  the  name  of  volunteers  or 
national  militia,  in  order  to  shake  off  the  oppressive  yoke  of  the 
mother-country;  but  they  had  no  longer  the  intelligent  officers 
of  the  English  army  to  direct  them,  nor  the  old  regular  forces  to 
support  them  at  the  critical  moment.  Their  rSle  of  auxiliaries 
had  but  poorly  prepared  them  to  sustain  alone  the  great  struggle 
which  patriotism  imposed  upon  them.  Beside  Washington  no 
colonial  officer  had  ever  figured  in  a  high  rank.  Consequently, 
the  French  who  came  with  Lafayette  to  place  their  experience  at 
the  service  of  the  young  American  army  brought  to  the  latter 
most  valuable  assistance.  But  their  best  ally,  their  greatest 
strength,  M^as  that  perseverance  Avhich  enabled  them  to  turn  a 
defeat  to  advantage  instead  of  succumbing  under  it.  This  was 
demonstrated  when  the  arrival  of  Rochambeau  furnished  them 
the  opportunity  to  undertake  that  splendid  and  decisive  cam- 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  C 

paign  which  transferred  the  war  from  the  borders  of  the  Hudson 
into  Virginia,  and  ended  it  by  out  blow  in  the  trenches  of  York- 
town. 

The  late  events  which  have  steeped  the  United  States  in  blood 
impart  a  peculiar  interest  to  the  study  of  the  war  of  American 
independence.  The  theatre  is  the  same,  the  character  of  the 
^country  has  changed  but  little  since  then,  and  on  both  sides  the 
actors  are  the  descendants  of  the  soldiers  of  Washington.  In  that 
first  attempt  of  the  young  American  nation  to  organize  its  mili- 
tary power  we  shall  find  precedents  for  what  was  done  in  1861, 
and  in  the  meagre  armies  of  the  last  century  the  model  of  those 
which,  in  our  own  day,  have  participated  in  the  civil  war. 

But  we  must,  first  of  all,  point  out  certain  important  differ- 
ences which  mark  both  wars,  and  the  circumstances  under  which 
they  were  undertaken ;  in  fact,  it  is  in  consequence  of  not  having 
taken  notice  of  these  differences  that  many  people  have  found 
their  predictions  falsified  by  the  results  of  the  late  struggle.  Be- 
cause the  thirteen  colonies  had  exhausted  the  efforts  of  England, 
they  believed  that  the  Confederate  States  would  eventually  wear 
out  the  strength  of  the  North.  Fortunately,  the  comparison  be- 
tween the  generous  movement  of  1775  and  the  resort  to  arms  by 
the  slave-owners  in  1861  is  as  false  in  a  military  as  in  a  political 
point  of  view. 

On  the  day  when  the  colonies  shook  off  the  authority  of  the 
mother-country,  all  the  strategic  points  of  their  territory  were 
occupied  by  the  English.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  conquer 
everything:  they  had  nothing  to  lose,  and  could  not  have  con- 
sidered themselves  as  beaten,  even  though  the  enemy  was  still  in 
the  heart  of  the  country.  In  1861,  on  the  contrary,  the  Confed- 
erates, masters  of  all  the  territory  which  they  sought  to  alienate 
from  the  lawful  jurisdiction  of  the  new  President,  had  need  of 
all  that  vast  country,  partly  for  the  maintenance  of  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery,  and  partly  for  the  support  of  their  numerous 
armies.  When  that  country  was  invaded,  they  felt  themselves 
vanquished.  What  was  possible  in  the  war  of  independence, 
where  the  number  of  combatants  was  limited,  was  so  no  longer. 
Washington  and  Gates,  Howe  and  Cornwallis,  had,  ordinarily, 
not  more  than  ten  or  fifteen,  and  very  rarely  twenty,  thousand 


6  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

men  undei  their  command.  These  little  armies  could  live  upon 
the  country  which  they  occupied.  It  was  not  always  without 
difficulty,  it  is  true;  and  the  soldiers  of  Washington  suffered 
cruelly  during  the  winter  they  passed,  at  Valley  Forge.  The 
English  army,  passing  through  a  relatively  rich  country  from 
Philadelphia  to  New  York,  was  obliged  to  carry  its  provisions 
along  with  it ;  and  Cornwallis  lost  all  his  baggage  in  North  Caro- 
lina, even  while  he  was  making  a  conquering  march  through  it. 
But  neither  of  these  had  to  depend  upon  that  vast  system  of  vic- 
tualling which  relies  upon  a  fixed  and  certain  base  of  operations, 
and  without  which  large  armies  cannot  be  supported  in  America. 
They  subsisted,  marched,  and  sojourned  for  months  by  the  side  of 
an  enemy  who  was  master  of  the  country. 

If  we  wished  to  draw  a  comparison  between  the  two  wars,  it 
would  be  the  armies  of  the  North,  and  not  those  of  the  South, 
that  we  should  have  to  compare  with  the  volunteers  who  freed 
America.  The  Confederate  conscripts — impetuously  brave,  accus- 
tomed to  obedience,  and  blindly  following  their  chiefs,  but  indi- 
vidually without  perseverance  or  tenacity — were  men  of  different 
spirit,  different  habits,  and  different  temperament ;  their  character 
had  been  moulded  by  the  aristocratic  institutions  founded  upon 
slavery.  The  Federal  volunteer,  on  the  contrary,  with  his  pecu- 
liarities and  his  defects,  is  the  direct  heir  of  those  Continentals,  as 
they  were  called,  who,  difficult  to  manage,  badly  organized,  and 
almost  always  beaten  notwithstanding  their  personal  courage, 
ended,  nevertheless,  by  defeating  the  English  legions.  He  has, 
moreover,  other  claims  to  be  considered  their  inheritor,  for  he  can 
recall  to  mind  the  fact  that  it  was  the  Northern  States,  then  sim- 
ple colonies,  which  sustained  nearly  all  the  brunt  of  the  war  of 
independence,  the  rewards  of  which  they  shared  with  their  asso- 
ciates of  the  South.  Out  of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty-two 
thousand  men  whom  that  war  saw  mustered  under  the  Federal 
flag,  Massachusetts  alone,  always  the  most  patriotic  and  the  most 
warlike,  furnished  sixty-eight  thousand ;  Connecticut,  with  less 
population,  thirty-two  thousand ;  Pennsylvania,  twenty-six 
thousand ;  New  York,  almost  entirely  occupied  by  the  English, 
eighteen  thousand ;  to  sum  up,  the  States  which  were  faithful  to 
tlie  Union  in  1861  had  given  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  thou- 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  7 

sand  men  to  fight  against  England — that  is  to  say,  more  than 
three-fourths  of  the  total  number.  Among  those  which,  at  a 
later  period,  espoused  the  Confederate  cause,  valiant  Virginia 
was  the  only  one  which  at  that  time  contributed  a  resjiectable 
contingent,  while  South  Carolina,  so  haughty  since,  could  not 
raise  more  than  six  thousand  men  during  the  whole  war  against 
England.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  States  which  defended 
the  Union  in  1861  are  those  that  had  made  the  greatest  sacrifices 
to  establish  it,  while  those  that  raised  the  standard  of  rebellion 
agaihst  it  are  also  those  that  had  the  least  right  to  call  themselves 
its  founders. 

We  cannot  be  astonished,  therefore,  at  finding  among  the  sol- 
diers who  were  the  first  to  carry  the  star-spangled  banner  to  the 
battle-field  the  traits  which  have  always  characterized  the  Federal 
volunteer.  These  traits  have  been  displayed  from  the  beginning 
of  the  struggle  with  the  mother-country.  As  soon  as  mustered, 
they  would  meet  the  onset  of  the  English  veterans  from  behind  the 
rudest  defences.  They  defended  themselves  with  extraordinary 
energy  at  Bunker  Hill,  as  the  improvised  soldiers  of  General 
Jackson  did  at  a  later  period,  in  1815,  at  New  Orleans,  and  as, 
upon  a  wider  field  of  action,  the  army  of  the  Potomac  did  at 
Gettysburg.  They  were  indefatigable  workers :  with  pick  and 
axe  in  hand,  at  the  sieges  of  Boston  and  Yorktown,  like  those 
volunteers  who,  in  the  course  of  four  years,  covered  America 
with  fortifications  and  trenches,  but,  at  the  same  time,  easily  dis- 
concerted when  they  felt  or  fancied  themselves  surprised  by  a 
flank  movement,  as  at  Brandywine  and  Germantown  ;  difficult  to 
lead  to  the  attack  of  a  strong  position,  and  forgetful  of  the 
principle,  that  there  is  less  danger  in  rushing  upon  an  enemy 
than  in  receiving  his  fire  without  stirring.  They  would  then 
quickly  become  disorganized,  and,  more  wonderful  still,  would 
recover  their  organization  with  equal  promptness.  From  their  first 
engagements  with  the  English  down  to  the  war  which  arrayed 
them  against  each  other,  the  American  volunteers,  finding  a  valu- 
able auxiliary  in  their  country,  covered  with  forests  and  interspersed 
with  swamps,  seldom  allowed  a  panic  to  degenerate  into  a  rout, 
and  had  the  great  merit  of  scarcely  ever  believing  themselves 
vanquished  after  a  defeat. 


8  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

It  required,  nevertheless,  all  the  organizing  mind  of  Washiiig- 
ton,  all  his  devotedness,  all  his  tact  and  patience,  to  be  able, 
almost  without  resources  and  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  intrigues, 
to  maintain  unity  among  elements  so  difficult  to  unite,  and  to 
mould  them  to  the  hard  exigencies  of  the  military  profession. 

The  provincial  militia  which  had  taken  part  in  the  Seven 
Years'  War  was  formed  on  the  model  of  those  of  the  English 
counties.  At  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  with  England,  each 
colony  added  to  her  militia  some  regiments  of  volunteers  enlisted 
for  a  short  period,  and  thus  raised  a  small  independent,  private 
army.  United  by  Congress  under  the  authority  of  Washington, 
they  nevertheless  maintained  for  some  time  their  distinct  organ- 
ization ;  and  when  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  and  self-denial 
was  once  over,  one  may  imagine  the  obstacles  which  such  a  sys- 
tem opposed  to  the  zeal  of  the  general-in-chief.  He,  who  never 
courted  popularity  by  flattering  his  countrymen,  knew  how  to 
enforce  a  severe  discipline.  "  It  is  necessary,''  he  said  to  them, 
"  that  a  most  perfect  despotism  should  exist  in  an  army."  The 
testimony  of  that  great  citizen  deserves  to  be  pondered  by  those 
who,  in  the  name  of  liberty,  seek  to  introduce  a  spirit  of  criti- 
cism and  independence  in  the  army,  which  always  engenders 
insubordination.  Besides,  his  despotism  was  strictly  confined  to 
his  military  character,  and  tempered  by  the  regard  which  he 
inspired  among  all  his  inferiors ;  it  was  only,  however,  by  means 
of  seasonable  severities  and  necessary  concessions  that  he  was  able 
to  maintain  that  organization  in  his  army  which  enabled  him 
thoroughly  to  accomplish  his  task. 

The  militia,  recruited  from  the  lowest  dregs  of  society,  as  in 
England,  were  a  perpetual  source  of  anxiety  to  him.  On  the 
field  of  battle  they  more  than  once  occasioned  disastrous  panics ; 
in  camp  they  frequently  fomented  a  spirit  of  revolt.  The  vol- 
unteer regiments,  formed  at  a  moment  of  patriotic  impulse,  were 
composed  of  far  better  material ;  but  they  were  only  enlisted  for 
a  few  months,  and  during  the  early  stages  of  the  war  the  nego- 
tiations set  on  foot  to  prolong  their  term  of  service  were  con- 
stantly paralyzing  military  operations. 

The  national  army  was  at  last  organized  in  1776.  It  has 
served  as  the  type  of  all  the  levies  of  volunteers  whicli  have  been 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  S 

• 

made  since,  down  to  those  called  for  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  army 
was  placed  under  the  immediate  orders  of  Congress,  which  shared 
with  the  States  the  costs  of  pay  and  equipment.  The  contingent 
of  each  State  was  fixed  at  a  certain  number  of  battalions,  the 
officers  of  which  were  appointed  by  the  local  authorities ;  and  if 
the  voluntary  enlistments  did  not  suffice,  the  total  number  required 
was  completed  by  drafting  exclusively  among  the  militia.  The 
latter,  in  reality,  was  only  composed  of  enlisted  volunteers.  It 
is  true  that  in  cases  of  extreme  urgency,  the  number  of  men 
required  for  the  militia  conld  be  raised  by  general  draft,  as  in 
England.  But  this  experiment  had  once  been  tried  in  Virginia, 
and  had  caused  so  much  trouble  that  it  was  found  necessary  to 
abandon  it.  Congress,  while  mindful  that  the  brigades  should  be 
formed  of  battalions  from  the  same  State,  reserved  to  itself  the 
organization  of  the  army,  the  confirmation  of  inferior  grades  and 
the  appointment  of  the  general  staff.  This  army  was  at  first 
composed  of  eighty-eight  battalions  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
men  each ;  its  organization  and  the  commissions  issued  were  to 
last  as  long  as  the  war  continued ;  but  as  it  was  impossible  to 
procure  enlistments  for  such  an  indefinite  period  of  service,  the 
term  had  at  first  to  be  limited  to  one  year.  As  the  distress  of 
the  country  contributed  to  the  general  embarrassment,  the  dif- 
ficulties which  it  had  been  sought  to  avoid  very  soon  reappeared. 
In  order  to  encourage  re-enlistments,  the  pay  was  raised,  money- 
bounties  were  offered  on  being  mustered  into  service,  and  land- 
bounties  on  being  mustered  out.  Washington  pointed  out  in 
vain  the  inconveniences  of  a  system  which  mingled  speculation 
with  the  noble  and  rugged  profession  of  arms.  But  men  were 
wanted ;  and  the  States,  dreading  the  unpopularity  of  the  draft, 
instead  of  listening  to  his  advice,  outbid  the  offers  made  by  Con- 
gress. The  result  was  that  the  allurements  of  the  new  bounties 
induced  the  volunteers  to  seek  opportunities  to  re-enlist  by  short- 
ening their  time  of  service.  They  eventually  entered  into  an 
engagement  to  serve  "  for  three  years,  or  during  the  war."  The 
three  years  expired  on  the  first  of  January,  1781,  and  the  war 
seemed  far  from  being  ended.  The  Pennsylvania  soldiers  insisted 
that  they  had  only  enlisted  for  three  years,  the  words  "  or  during 
the  war"  meaning  simply,  according  to  their  interpretation,  that 


10  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

if  the  war  was  ended  before,  their  time  of  service  would  be 
abridged.  The  officers,  on  the  contrary,  construed  these  words  as 
implying  an  engagement  to  remain  under  the  flag  for  at  least 
three  years,  and  longer  if  the  war  continued  for  a  longer  period 
of  time.  This  question  of  grammar  almost  caused  the  shedding 
of  blood ;  it  was  deemed  expedient  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  the 
volunteers,  and  their  interpretation  was  finally  adopted.  But 
the  harm  done  to  discipline  was  great  and  lasting. 

Nor  did  unjust  rivalries  and  petty  jealousies  spare  the  most 
illustrious  soldiers  of  the  war  of  independence ;  but  these  belong 
to  all  times  and  to  all  countries,  and  the  Americans  did  not  wait 
long  to  indemnify  those  who  had  been  their  victims  by  a  spontane- 
ous reaction  in  public  opinion.  In  fact,  notwithstanding  the  de- 
fects of  their  organization,  the  American  soldiers  were  animated 
by  that  ardent  and  sincere  zeal  which  carries  great  men  and  great 
nations  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  designs ;  and  it  was  owing 
to  their  possession  of  this  quality  that  they  finally  compelled  vic- 
tory to  perch  upon  their  banners. 

The  greater  the  magnitude  of  the  national  effort,  the  more  irre- 
sistible became  the  reaction  which  followed.  After  so  many  sac- 
rifices made  for  the  common  good,  the  spirit  of  local  independence 
again  resumed  its  empire.  The  remembrance  of  the  English  reg- 
ulars, the  need  of  economy,  and  the  general  exhaustion,  caused  a 
universal  demand  to  be  made  for  the  disbanding  of  the  national 
army.  Freed  from  the  danger  which  had  brought  them  together, 
the  old  colonies  hastened  to  get  rid  of  all  the  burdens  most  neces- 
sary to  their  new  existence ;  they  Avasted  their  energies  in  quarrels 
which  nearly  lost  them  the  regard  of  their  most  zealous  partisans 
in  Europe,  and,  being  still  more  jealous  of  the  central  power,  they 
left  it  no  authority — no  means  of  action.  It  M^as  the  golden  age 
of  "States'  Rights,"  the  defence  of  which,  at  a  later  day,  served 
as  a  pretext  for  the  insurrection  of  1861.  Under  this  fatal  in- 
fluence the  army  of  the  United  States  gradually  disappeared,  the 
entire  defence  of  the  extensive  frontiers  of  Canada  and  the  In- 
dian tribes  was  entrusted  to  the  militia  of  each  State,  and  in  1784 
the  national  army  found  itself  reduced  to  the  absurd  total  of 
eighty  men  and  officers. 

When  true  patriots  rescued  America  from  the  fatal  course  she 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        H 

was  pursuing,  and  her  nationality  had  been  definitely  established 
by  that  admirable  document  called  the  Federal  Constitution,  it 
was  deemed  necessary  to  confer  some  authority  upon  the  recon- 
stituted central  power.  Yet,  between  this  period,  which  may  be 
called  its  first  resurrection,  and  the  day  when  it  was  definitely  or- 
ganized, the  regular  army  experienced  a  great  many  vicissitudes. 
In  fact,  when  Washington  found  himself  invested,  in  1789,  with 
the  new  title  of  President  and  commander  of  all  the  military 
forces  of  the  republic,  they  amounted  only  to  six  hundred  men. 
His  authority  over  the  militia  was  confined  to  a  small  number  of 
special  cases,  and  their  formation  depended  exclusively  upon  each 
State.  Knowing  from  experience  the  inconvenience  of  an  im- 
provised army,  he  thought  of  endowing  his  country  with  military 
institutions,  and  of  preparing  a  few  cadres*  which  would  enable 
him  to  transform  with  considerable  rapidity  such  citizens  as  might 
be  called,  by  unforeseen  danger,  to  rally  around  the  flag,  into  effec- 
tive soldiers.  But  he  could  not  conquer  the  pi'ejudices  of  a 
people,  just  enfranchised,  against  a  standing  army — prejudices  of 
which  Jefferson  was  the  exponent  in  his  own  cabinet.  Conse- 
quently, from  1789  till  1815  the  regular  army — that  which  was 
raised  and  organized  directly  by  the  Federal  power  without  the 
intervention  of  the  States — remained  in  a  provisional  condition. 
When  war  was  imminent,  it  was  immediately  swelled  by  adding 
to  it,  for  want  of  established  cadres,  regiments  entirely  new,  in 
which  all  the  grades  were  conferred  at  random ;  and  when  peace- 
ful tendencies  were  again  in  the  ascendant,  both  officers  and  men 
were  hastily  discharged. 

In  1790  this  army  comprised  only  one  regiment  of  infantry 
and  one  battalion  of  artillery — twelve  hundi"ed  and  sixteen  men 
in  all.  A  second  regiment,  formed  in  the  following  year,  in- 
creased the  number  to  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  men.    In  1793  it  was  suddenly  raised  to  six  thousand  men, 

*The  word  cadre,  which  the  author  frequently  uses  to  designate  the  frame- 
work of  a  regiliient,  cannot  be  satisfactorily  rendered  into  English  by  any  equiv- 
alent term.  The  cadres  are  regimental  skeletons  or  frames,  which,  in  European 
armies,  form  the  centres  of  new  regiments,  into  which  are  incorporated  all  the 
raw  recruits.  Therefore,  in  all  cases  where  the  word  cadre  is  used  in  the  orig- 
inal, the  Frencli  word  has  been  retained,  since  it  conveys  the  idea  more  di&- 
titictly  than  any  English  equivalent. — Ed. 


12  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA 

to  be  again  reduced  in  1796  to  two  thousand  eight  hundred  men. 
Each  time  an  act  of  Cong-ress  had  authorized  the  recruiting; 
of  men  and  the  formation  of  corps,  now  and  then  specifying  the 
duration  of  their  existence,  and  creating  the  necessary  grades  for 
the  occasion.  But  it  frequently  happened  that,  by  this  process, 
officers  were  procured  more  readily  than  soldiers.  Thus,  in  1798, 
apprehending  a  war  with  France,  Congress  ordered  a  levy  of  thir- 
teen thousand  regular  troops.  But  two  years  after,  it  was  found 
that,  while  the  corps  of  officers  was  complete,  only  three  thousand 
four  hundred  men  had  been  enlisted ;  and  in  1802  this  ephemeral 
army  was  reduced  to  the  total  of  three  thousand  men.  It  will 
be  seen  that  it  scarcely  deserved  the  name  of  a  regular  army. 
Consequently,  the  more  America  relied  upon  her  volunteers  for 
defence,  the  more  she  needed  a  permanent  school  to  form  a  corps 
of  educated  officers,  possessing  traditions  and  a  military  spirit, 
and  capable  of  supplying  the  wants  of  an  improvised  and  inex- 
perienced army.  Washington  had  felt  this  need,  and  desired  to 
found  a  Federal  school,  upon  a  sufficiently  comprehensive  basis, 
in  order  that  it  might  render  this  important  service  to  the  nation. 
But  his  project,  destined  to  be  adopted  at  a  later  period,  was  twice 
rejected,  in  1793  and  in  1796.  It  was  deemed  sufficient  to  estab- 
lish a  species  of  disguised  school  at  West  Point  {une  espece  d'ecole 
deguisee)  altogether  inadequate  to  the  wants  of  the  country,  com- 
prising a  depot  of  artillery  and  engineers,  with  two  professors 
and  about  forty  cadets.  It  was  only  in  1812  that  the  project  of 
Washington  was  taken  up  again,  and  that  the  West  Point  acad- 
emy, of  which  he  was  the  posthumous  founder,  became!  in  reality, 
the  nursery  of  the  regular  army.  At  that  period  America  learned 
at  last,  to  her  own  cost,  liow  much  these  indecisions  and  alterna- 
tions had  militated  against  the  development  of  good  military 
institutions. 

We  have  desired  to  show  by  these  details  that  the  raising  of 
improvised  armies,  of  which  the  year  1861  has  given  such  a 
gigantic  example,  has  been  at  all  times  the  custom  of  America, 
and  that  the  measures  then  adopted  upon  a  large  scale  have  been 
resorted  to  since  the  early  times  of  the  republic  whenever  it  has 
been  threatened  by  ujiforeseen  danger.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
the   inexperience   of  the  whole  nation  when  she  tooK  up  arms 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        13 

against  the  secessionists ;  and  in  observing  the  weak  part  played 
by  the  military  element  in  her  public  life,  far  from  being  aston- 
ished that  she  did  not  succeed  sooner,  one  should,  on  the  contrary, 
admire  her  for  having  accomplished  so  much  and  created  so  much 
without  any  preparation.  We  might  quote  many  instances  of  this 
contrast,  so  honorable  to  her  energy,  between  the  organized  re- 
sources that  she  possessed  and  the  results  she  attained.  Thus  the 
department  of  war,  which  in  1865  had  control  of  more  than  a 
million  of  men,  was,  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  amal- 
gamated with  that  of  the  navy,  and  was  composed  of  one  sec- 
retary and  eight  clerks. 

The  six  thousand  men  voted  by  Congress  in  1808,  when  war 
with  England  seemed  imminent,  had  never  been  brought  together. 
Therefore,  when,  in  1812,  after  twenty  years'  peace,  that  war  broke 
out  at  last,  the  traditions  of  the  war  of  independence  had  been 
nearly  obliterated.  There  was  no  enthusiasm  to  supply  their 
place :  this  could  not  be  kindled  in  behalf  of  a  war  in  which 
the  national  existence  was  not  at  stake.  We  shall  not  pause  to 
narrate  the  particulars  of  that  war,  for  it  has  left  no  important 
traditions  behind,  and  only  developed  a  small  number  of  dis- 
tinguished men.  It  presents  but  few  instructive  examples  of 
the  mode  of  fighting  in  the  New  World,  and  with  the  exception 
of  the  brilliant  affair  of  New  Orleans,  it  scarcely  displayed  aught 
save  the  ordinary  defects  of  American  volunteers,  without  bring- 
ing their  best  qualities  into  relief.  The  campaigns  in  Canada,  if 
such  a  term  may  be  applied  to  a  series  of  disjointed  operations 
as  insignificant  in  their  results  as  in  the  means  employed,  are 
utterly  destitute  of  interest.  The  regular  army  was  hardly  in 
existence.  The  volunteers,  few  in  number,  levied  in  haste,  and 
generally  for  the  term  of  a  single  expedition,  confined  to  the 
frontier  of  their  own  State,  could  scarcely  be  considered  as  part 
of  the  army.  The  militia,  more  insubordinate  still  than  under 
Washington,  found  constitutional  reasons  for  refusing,  even  in 
the  midst  of  active  operations,  to  go  beyond  the  frontier  to  sup- 
port their  comrades  in  the  field.  The  most  bloody  affair,  perhaps 
— that  of  Niagara — was  a  night  skirmish,  in  which  each  of  the 
contending  parties,  believing  itself  beaten,  abandoned  the  field  of 
battle  before  the  break  of  day ;  while  the  rout  of  Bladensburg 


14  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

threw  a  melancholy  light  upon  the  demoralization  of  those  impro- 
vised troops.  The  name  of  the  young  general  Scott,  lately  the 
illustrious  senior  of  the  American  army,  is  alone  deserving  of 
being  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with  that  of  Perry — that 
sailor  who,  by  dint  of  audacity,  was  enabled  to  secure  the  naval 
supremacy  of  the  lakes. 

Those,  however,  who  followed  that  war  throughout  all  its 
chequered  fortunes,  might  already  have  noticed  one  fact — a  fact 
which  has  often  been  confirmed  since — that  on  the  soil  of  America 
the  defensive  is  easy,  but  the  offensive  difficult,  to  maintain. 
Absorbed  by  their  struggle  with  France,  the  British,  instead 
of  attacking,  were  obliged  to  wait  for  the  Americans  in  Canada ; 
this  necessity  constituted  their  strength.  In  1814,  peace  with 
France,  by  restoring  to  them  all  freedom  of  action,  seemed  to 
have  given  them  a  guaranty  of  indisputable  superiority.  The  re- 
verse took  place ;  for  feeling  themselves  the  stronger,  they  re- 
sumed the  offensive,  and  the  Americans,  being  attacked  in  their 
turn,  soon  recovered  all  the  advantages  they  had  lost  by  invading 
the  territory  of  the  enemy.  In  fact,  after  having  been  success- 
ful at  Bladensburg  without  effort,  having  burnt  one  portion  of 
Washington,  and  occupied  the  rest,  the  British  could  not  sustain 
themselves  in  that  position ;  and  in  vacating  the  capital  of  the 
enemy  without  a  fight,  they  were  obliged  to  acknowledge  how 
fruitless  was  the  victory  which  had  delivered  it  to  them.  At 
last,  the  war  ended  to  the  advantage  of  the  Americans  on  the 
borders  of  Lake  Champlain  and  at  New  Orleans,  where  the  Brit- 
ish were  vanquished  by  a  handful  of  white  men  and  negroes 
mixed  together  and  armed  in  haste,  to  whom  Jackson  had  im- 
parted his  own  indomitable  energy. 

These  two  fortunate  affairs  could  not  make  America  forget  the 
events  that  had  preceded  them,  and  had  proved  a  serious  lesson 
to  her.  Therefore  this  war  was  not  altogether  useless  to  her,  for 
it  made  her  feel  the  necessity  of  reorganizing  her  military  insti- 
tutions upon  a  new  basis.  From  the  very  beginning,  public 
opinion,  that  all-powerful  judge  among  free  peoples,  which  pos- 
sesses perhaps  the  caprices,  but  not  the  fetal  infatuations,  of  des- 
pots, had  promptly  recovered  from  all  its  prejudices.  It  was 
then  that  the  project  of  a  military  school,  bequeathed  by  Wash- 


VOLUNTEERS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.       15 

ington,  was  adopted.  The  President  asked  for  ten  thousand  men 
for  the  regular  army;  he  was  authorized  to  raise  twenty-five 
thousand.  This  actual  force,  however,  was  never  fully  raised, 
and  the  new  recruits,  without  established  cadres,  proved  to  be 
quite  as  inexperienced  as  any  volunteers  or  militia. 

But  when  peace  was  declared  in  1815,  instead  of  disbanding 
them  to  the  last  man,  as  had  been  customary,  ten  thousand  men 
were  retained  under  the  flag.  They  formed  the  effective  total  of 
the  Federal  troops  on  the  peace  footing,  which  it  was  finally  de- 
termined to  organize  in  a  more  definite  manner.  It  is,  therefore, 
from  that  year  that  the  existence,  in  America,  of  a  regular  army 
may  be  dated,  comprising  corps  of  all  arms,  systematically  re- 
cruited, having  a  fixed  system  of  promotion,  and  opening  a 
legitimate  career  to  officers,  certain,  henceforth,  of  retaining  their 
respective  grades. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  REOULAB  ARMY. 

A  REGULAR  standing  army,  with  its  discipline  and  succes- 
.  sive  grades,  placed  in  the  midst  of  a  society  so  fluctuating 
and  so  jealous  of  everything  which"  does  not  emanate  directly 
from  the  elective  power,  must  have  occupied  a  singular  and  dif- 
ficult position.  It  did  not  succumb  before  the  numerous  attacks 
of  which  it  was  the  object,  but  that  position  gave  it  an  original 
character,  and  developed  in  the  highest  degree  an  esprit  de  corps 
among  its  members. 

We  must  enter  into  some  details  concerning  its  organization, 
which  had  changed  but  little  since  its  creation,  and  which  served 
as  a  model  to  that  of  the  volunteer  army,  whose  campaigns  we 
shall  have  to  narrate. 

The  West  Point  Academy  has  exercised  a  powerful  influence 
upon  the  character  of  the  American  army.  Situated  on  the 
wooded  banks  of  the  Pludson,  upon  a  picturesque  site,  where 
interesting  historical  associations  cluster  around  an  important 
military  post,  the  cradle  of  the  family  of  regulars  is  in  striking 
contrast  with  all  its  surroundings.  At  the  foot  of  that  peaceful 
retreat,  where  military  traditions  are  religiously  cherished,  the 
great  river  which  waters  New  York  presents  a  moving  panorama 
of  active  industry.  By  a  remarkable  exception  in  that  country 
of  perpetual  changes,  the  academy,  from  its  foundation  to  the 
period  of  which  we  speak,  has  preserved  its  early  regulations  and 
statutes,  and  the  pupils  still  wear  the  gray  coat  with  narrow  black 
lace  on  the  facings  which  was  adopted  for  the  use  of  the  first 
engineer-cadets  in  1802.  The  system  of  admission  is  also  in 
contrast  with  tlie  equalizing  customs  of  the  country.  It  is 
founded  entirely  upon  favor,  and  it  is  only  since  the  war  that  a 

16 


THE  REGULAR  AR3IY.  17 

proposition  has  ])een  made,  hitherto  without  success,  to  open  the 
places  to  competition.  This  anomaly,  however,  is  susceptible  of 
explanation ;  for  the  profession  of  arms  was  but  little  courted, 
and  besides,  the  American  people  do  not  consider  government 
offices  as  public  property,  for  a  share  in  the  distribution  of  which 
every  one  has  a  right  to  bid,  undergoing  an  examination  as  to 
fitness.  The  system  of  filling  up  vacancies  in  the  academy  adopt- 
ed by  its  founders  was  devised  Avith  a  view  of  making  that  insti- 
tution as  perfect  a  representation  as  possible  of  the  confederation 
of  States  of  which  it  was  the  common  bond.  Ten  pupils  are 
appointed  every  year  at  large  by  the  President.  Moreover,  each 
of  the  electoral  districts  which  send  members  to  the  House  of 
Eejjrcsentatives  designates  every  four  years,  through  the  agency 
of  that  member,  one  pupil,  who  is  admitted  after  an  examination 
which  is  purely  nominal.*  As  the  course  of  studies  embraces  a 
period  of  four  years,  each  district  finds  itself  thus  represented  by 
one  pupil,  unless  the  latter  should  receive  a  sufficient  number  of 
demerits  to  cause  his  dismissal.  These  selections  have  frequently 
been  the  result  of  good  luck  rather  than  of  good  judgment.  As 
an  illustration  of  these  fortunate  chances  we  may  quote  the  case  of 
the  young  general  Kilpatrick,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  cavalry 
officers  in  the  late  war,  who  was  indebted  to  his  precocious  elo- 
quence for  his  admission  to  West  Point.  In  1856,  when  only 
eighteen  years  of  age,  he  was  extremely  anxious  to  embrace  the 
profession  of  arms.  The  right  to  nominate  a  pupil  to  West 
Point  was  about  to  fall  upon  the  Representative  of  his  district, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  in  consequence  of  the  expiration  of  his 
term  of  office,  the  person  who  occupied  that  position  was  on  the 
eve  of  entering  upon  a  new  canvass  for  the  suffrages  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens. The  candidate  for  the  military  academy  conceived 
the  idea  of  laying  the  political  candidate  under  personal  obliga- 
tions by  undertaking  the  advocacy  of  his  interests.  He  went 
from  village  to  village,  haranguing  the  electors,  extolling  the 
merits  of  the  individual  from  whom  he  expected,  in  return,  to 
obtain  his  admission  to  the  academy,  and  the  people  were  im- 

*  Tlie  subjects  of  examination  are  very  rudimentary — reading,  writing,  and 
arithmetic  througli  decimal  fractions ;  English  Grammar,  American  Geography, 
and  History  ;  but  the  examination  is  strict,  and  many  are  rejected  annually. — Ed. 
Vol.  I.— 2 


18  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

pressed  by  his  speeches  and  his  youth.     The  member  was  re- 
elected, and  Kilpatrick  entered  West  Point. 

But  if  the  terms  of  admission  do  not  guarantee  the  worth  of 
th*?  candidate  who  is  admitted,  in  the  school  itself  the  studies  are 
rigorous  and  prolonged,  and  the  discipline  is  very  severe.  All 
those  who  have  not  obtained  a  certain  number  of  marks  are  ex- 
cluded at  the  annual  examinations,  and  by  this  means  a  portion 
only  of  the  pupils  succeed  at  the  expiration  of  four  years  in  ob- 
taining admission  into  the  army  with  the  rank  of  second  lieu- 
tenant. The  last  two  years  are  devoted  alike,  by  all  the  pupils, 
to  special  studies,  and  to  obtaining  a  knowledge  of  engineering 
and  artillery  practice ;  it  is  a  necessary  condition  of  the  profession 
which  awaits  them  on  leaving  the  academy ;  indeed,  the  greater 
part  of  them,  before  entering  a  regiment  of  the  line,  undergo  a 
probation  of  some  years  in  the  artillery  corps,*  which  is  very 
large  compared  with  the  total  effective  force  of  the  army,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  fortifications  which  it  is  necessary  to  maintain  all 
along  the  immense  frontier.  The  rest,  constantly  isolated  at  dis- 
tant points  among  Indians,  are  obliged,  in  order  to  attain  efficiency, 
to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  every  branch  of  the  military  profes- 
sion. This  general  instruction  is,  moreover,  in  harmony  with  the 
national  spirit,  which  readily  believes  in  its  capacity  to  do  every- 
thing, and  in  which  the  initiative  of  individual  efforts,  strongly 
developed,  rectifies  the  abuses  of  that  system  of  specialties  which 
is  too  often  fatal  to  independence  of  character.  A  solitary  ex- 
ample will  show  that,  in  bestowing  this  varied  instruction,  which 
enables  officers  to  pass  from  one  branch  of  the  service  to  another, 
the  West  Point  system  does  not,  on  that  account,  lower  the  stand- 
ard of  its  studies.  Only  a  few  years  ago  all  the  professors  had 
officers  of  the  army  for  assistants,  who,  each  in  turn,  forsook  the 
active  and  solitary  life  of  the  Western  prairies,  to  become,  for  the 
term  of  four  years,  the  scientific  instructors  of  those  pupils  who 
had  replaced  them  on  the  benches  of  the  academy,  and  who  were 
soon  to  become  their  comrades  in  the  ranks  of  the  army.  The 
pupils,  instead  of  paying  for  the  privileges  of  such  excellent  ed- 

*  There  is  an  artillery  school  at  Fortress  IVfonroe,  and  some  officers  of  in- 
fantry and  cavalry  have  attended  it  at  their  own  request,  but  it  is  chiefly  de- 
signed for  officers  of  artillery. — Ed. 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  19 

ucation,  receive,  on  the  contrary,  a  considerable  salary.  Conse- 
quently, the  Federal  government  is  somewhat  entitled  to  their 
loyalty,  and  had  the  right  to  prefer  charges  of  ingratitude  against 
those  who,  in  1861,  placed  at  the  service  of  its  enemies  the  know- 
ledge they  had  thus  acquired  under  the  auspices  of  the  Federal 
flag. 

Thanks  to  their  long  and  serious  studies,  which  kept  th^m  aloof 
from  their  fellow-citizens,  always  in  a  hurry  to  act  and  to  enjoy — 
thanks  to  the  bonds  of  fellowship  which  the  associations  of  youth 
implant  in  the  heart  of  man,  and  especially  to  those  attacks  of 
which  both  the  academ}^  and  the  army  had  been  the  subject — the 
West  Pointers  very  soon  formed  an  almost  aristocratic  and  ex- 
clusive body,  all  the  members  of  which  mutually  sustained  each 
other.  At  the  period  of  which  we  are  speaking,  those  who  re- 
mained under  the  flag  were  animated  by  a  genuine  passion  for  the 
profession  of  arms ;  for  such  a  feeling  alone  could  have  induced 
men  of  capacity  and  energy  to  lead  a  rugged  and  unremunerating 
life,  without  even  finding  the  reward  of  their  labors  in  public 
sympathy.  Those  who,  tired  out  by  the  slowness  of  promotion, 
and  attracted  by  more  brilliant  prospects,  quitted  the  service  after 
a  few  years  (and  they  were  numerous,  especially  among  the  young 
men  of  the  North),  did  not  forget  their  early  education  on  that 
account;  it  was,  therefore,  among  these  that  the  Federal  cause 
recruited  its  most  brilliant  defenders.  These  changes  in  the  pur- 
suits of  life  did  not  break  the  bonds  which  united  all  West  Point- 
ers together.  If  this  coterie — for  it  was  one — could,  Math  all  its 
defects  and  partialities,  maintain  itself  and  cause  itself  to  be  re- 
spected in  the  midst  of  a  society  so  fluctuating,  it  is  because  it  was 
governed  by  the  noblest  sentiments  of  honor  and  military  duty. 
Preserving  the  most  valuable  traditions  by  the  side  of  successive 
administrations  essentially  changeable  in  their  character,  it  was 
found  ready,  notwithstanding  many  desertions,  to  organize  the 
scattered  forces  of  the  nation  on  the  day  when  the  Southern  lead- 
ers gave  the  signal  of  civil  war. 

That  great  task  accomplished,  the  coterie  disappeared,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  triumph  to  which  it  had  so  powerfully  contrib- 
uted. After  such  a  struggle,  it  will  not  be  asked  of  the  general 
who  has  commanded  in  twenty  battles  whether  he  is  or  is  not  a 


20  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

"West  Pointer.  The  public,  which  had  regarded  the  regular  officer 
as  a  being  apart  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  almost  dangerous, 
has  seen  him  at  work,  knows  his  patriotism,  and  has  given  him  its 
confidence.  And  the  latter,  forgetting  the  derisive  nickname  of 
mustang  (Indian  name  for  wild  horse),  which  he  was  wont  to  apply 
to  inexperienced  volunteers  before  the  advent  of  the  common  trial, 
now  respects  them,  and  seeks  his  associates  among  them.  The 
great  drama  in  which  they  have  played  their  respective  parts  side 
by  side,  in  breaking  down  the  old  barriers  and  blotting  out  past 
distinctions,  has  created  a  new  fraternity  among  them. 

The  West  Point  Academy,  since  its  origin,  has  always  sup- 
plied the  army  with  the  greatest  portion  of  its  officers ;  but  the 
President  has  never  been  restricted  in  his  appointment  of  officers 
to  selections  among  the  graduates  of  that  institution.  As  com- 
mander-in-chief, he  is  not  bound  by  any  law,  either  as  regards 
admission  or  j)romotion.  "When  the  number  and  the  various 
grades  have  once  been  defined  and  settled  by  Congress,  he  can 
distribute  them  as  he  thinks  proper.  But  his  power  is  subjected 
to  the  will  of  the  Senate — that  great  political  body  which  plays 
the  principal  r6le  in  the  Federal  constitution,  and  whose  province 
it  is  to  confirm  every  nomination,  which  otherwise  becomes  null 
and  void  by  the  tacit  operation  of  the  law,  at  the  close  of  the  leg- 
islative session  in  which  it  was  presented  for  consideration.  The 
Senate  has  always  made  ample  use  of  this  prerogative.  From  the 
general  to  the  second  lieutenant,  each  candidate  has  his  claims 
discussed  before  this  assembly,  which,  if  need  be,  becomes  the 
interpreter  of  public  sentiment  against  too  glaring  acts  of  favor- 
itism, but  which,  under  the  influence  of  party  spirit,  is  also 
sometimes  led  into  error  in  the  exercise  of  these  delicate  functions. 

The  executive  power,  however,  took  care  to  impose  upon  itself 
a  rule,  and  to  fortify  the  hierarchical  spirit  by  introducing  the 
principle  of  promotion  by  seniority.  This  system  of  promotion 
was  established  through  the  promulgation  of  certain  ordinances, 
styled  Articles  of  War,  which  comprise,  at  the  same  time,  instruc- 
tions for  the  officers,  and  a  series  of  military  regulations  which, 
although  liable  to  be  revoked  by  the  President,  have,  never- 
theless, come  to  be  considered  as  a  true  code  of  laws  for  the 
army.  ,  , 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  21 

Promotion  by  seniority  is  a  wise  rule  of  action  in  a  republic 
where  the  administrative  power  so  frequently  changes  hands,  and 
where  the  personnel  of  the  government  is  almost  entirely  renewed 
on  the  occasion  of  each  change ;  for  although  the  President  is  al- 
lowed perfect  freedom  of  choice  in  the  formation  of  new  regiments, 
it  secures  true  independence  to  the  officers.  Up  to  the  rank  of 
captain  this  promotion  takes  place  in  the  regiment ;  to  that  of 
colonel,  in  the  arm.  Seniority  of  rank  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  appointment  of  general  officers. 

The  President  had,  nevertheless,  numerous  occasions  for  the 
exercise  of  his  patronage  outside  of  all  hierarchical  regulations ; 
indeed,  the  standing  nucleus  of  the  army  was  so  weak  that  at 
every  sign  of  war  it  was  necessary  to  increase  it  in  haste.  The 
value  of  traditions  was  as  yet  so  little  appreciated  in  the  various 
branches  of  the  service  that  more  than  once,  for  instance,  consid- 
erations of  economy  have  caused  the  sudden  discharge  of  all  the 
cavalry.  And  too  often,  when  new  cadres  had  to  be  formed,  the 
President,  forgetful  that  young  soldiers  require  experienced  leaders, 
only  reserved  a  few  places  for  the  officers  taken  from  the  other 
corps  of  the  army ;  the  rest  were  divided  among  old  volunteers, 
officers  who  had  resigned  their  respective  commissions  and  were 
desirous  to  resume  the  epaulette,  and  especially  political  favorites. 
Those  who  attained  superior  grades  assumed  at  once  their  senior- 
ity of  rank  in  that  entire  branch  of  the  service,  and  preserved  it 
when  the  corps  to  the  formation  of  which  they  were  indebted  for 
their  rapid  elevation  was  disbanded.  This  system,  however,  oc- 
casionally gave  the  army  some  excellent  soldiers,  who,  although 
not  graduates  of  West  Point,  did  not  the  less  display  great  mili- 
tary talents.  Finally,  a  custom,  singular  enough  in  a  republic, 
borrowed  from  the  British  army,  that  of  brevet  rank,  or  honorary 
promotion,  enabled  the  President  to  confer,  in  the  way  of  rewards, 
titles  which  were  wholly  independent  of  the  rules  of  seniority. 
These,  however,  only  conferred  superiority  of  rank  in  regard  to 
what  was  strictly  honorary,  giving  no  increase  of  pay,  and  serving 
in  no  way  to  assist  promotion.  The  recipient  of  the  brevet  con- 
tinued to  perform  the  functions  of  the  inferior  grade ;  and  one 
might  thus  see  a  simple  captain  in  command  of  a  company  wear- 
ing the  insignia  of  a  lieutenant-colonel.     This  system,  so  much  at 


22  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

variance  with  the  spirit  of  military  subordination,  was  largely  in 
vogue,  because,  through  its  operation,  the  self-love  and  vanity  of 
many  people  could  be  gratified  without  loosening  the  purse- 
strings  of  the  nation.  At  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  in  one  regi- 
ment alone,  counting  forty-five  officers,  twenty-one  of  them  re- 
ceived brevets. 

By  a  natural  reaction  against  the  spirit  of  social  equality 
peculiar  to  the  country,  an  almost  impassable  barrier  had  been 
raised  in  the  regular  army  between  soldiers  and  officers.  It 
required  some  splendid  achievement  to  enable  the  non-commis- 
sioned officer,  ennobled  by  the  epaulettes,  to  take  a  seat  among 
his  former  chiefs,  and  it  was  only  in  1861  that  a  commission  Avas 
appointed  for  the  examination  and  regular  admission  of  a  certain 
number  of  non-commissioned  officers  to  the  rank  of  officers.  The 
material  of  which  the  rank  and  file  was  composed  did,  in  fact, 
justify  that  exclusiveness ;  for  it  fully  deserved  the  name  of  mer- 
cenary, subsequently  so  unjustly  applied  to  the  volunteers  of  1861. 
These  troops  were  recruited  among  emigrants  who  had  not  been 
able  to  secure  better  means  of  existence ;  for  that  mode  of  life 
which  required  entire  submission  to  the  discipline  of  the  barracks, 
even  in  the  midst  of  the  desert,  held  out  but  few  inducements  to 
the  Americans  themselves,  who  never  sought  to  adopt  it  unless 
driven  to  it  by  sheer  necessity. 

The  regular  officer,  in  short,  isolated  at  some  distant  post,  like 
a  sea-captain  on  board  his  vessel,  always  exposed  to  the  perfidy 
of  the  Indian,  and  obliged  to  be  constantly  on  his  guard,  main- 
tained his  authority  by  means  of  the  strictest  discipline.  Cor- 
poral punishments  were  frequent  and  severe.  When,  in  1861, 
the  remnants  of  the  regular  army  returned  to  the  large  cities  of 
the  Union  from  the  far  West,  they  brought  with  them  those 
inflexible  regulations,  the  application  of  which  contrasted  so  sin- 
gularly with  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  which  must  have 
cooled  down  the  enthusiasm  of  more  than  one  citizen  about  to 
enlist. 

In  the  fall  of  1861  the  inhabitants  of  Washington,  passing  near 
the  batteries  of  artillery  encamped  on  their  public  grounds,  saw 
with  astonishment  sc^ldiers  who  had  been  guilty  of  some  violation 
of  discipline,  some  of  them  tied  to  the  carriage  of  a  gun,  some 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  23 

half  suspended  by  their  thumbs,  others  compelled  to  walk  with 
a  gag  in  their  mouths  or  with  their  heads  thrust  through  a 
staved-in  barrel — emblems  of  their  insolence  or  their  drunk- 
enness.* 

A  high  rate  of  compensation  could  alone  draw  volunteer  re- 
cruits into  this  army.  In  1860  this  rate  of  compensation  was 
as  high  as  eleven  dollars,  or  nearly  sixty  francs,  per  month, 
without  any  deduction  for  food  or  raiment.  The  disproportion 
between  the  salaries  of  different  grades  was  less  than  amongst  us  ; 
for  in  America  it  is  not  thought  that  a  faithful  performance  of 
duty  in  public  offices  can  be  secured  by  allowing  the  lower  ranks 
of  employes  to  vegetate  under  the  pressure  of  insufficient  pay, 
while  a  few  superior  officers  only  enjoy  high  salaries.  A  lieu- 
tenant receives  under  various  forms  an  annual  salary  of  fifty-five 
hundred  francs ;  a  colonel,  twenty  thousand  francs ;  and  a  major- 
general,  twenty-five  thousand  francs.  They  could  undoubtedly, 
therefore — all  of  them — economize  to  some  extent,  especially 
when  they  had  to  pass  half  their  lives  in  the  wilderness.  At 
all  events,  it  was  but  little  compared  with  what  their  former  com- 
rades of  West  Point  earned  in  the  various  pursuits  of  industry 
and  commerce. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  radical  difference  between  the  system  of 
public  salaries  in  the  United  States  and  our  own.  Unless  ai:^ 
officer  can  procure  a  pension  through  the  instrumentality  of  hon- 
orable wounds,  it  is  all  over  with  him  on  the  day  he  is  discharged 
from  active  service.  In  return  for  his  time  and  trouble  he  is 
liberally  paid  so  long  as  the  contract  in  virtue  of  which  he  was 
mustered  into  service  is  in  existence ;  ])ut  this  contract  between 
the  President  and  himself  is  always  liable  to  be  revoked  by  either 
of  the  contracting  parties,  and  if  one  has  always  the  right  to 
tender  his  resignation,  the  other  is  equally  entitled  to  dismiss  him 
whenever  he  pleases — there  is  no  retiring  list,  and,  consequently, 
no  limit  as  to  age.f     The  hope  of  obtaining  from  the  State,  by 

*  Such  punishments  were  in  defiance  of  the  army  regulations  and  the  Articles 
of  War,  and  must  be  attributed  to  the  excitement  and  confusion  of  the  period  re- 
ferred to. — Ed. 

t  The  author  was  probably  not  aware  of  the  very  liberal  provisions  that  have 
oeen  made,  since  the  war,  for  the  retirement  and  support  of  officers  who  ha  Pe 


24  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  exercise  of  patience,  on  the  day  when  he  shall  no  longer  be 
able  to  render  any  service  to  it,  some  slender  means  of  existence, 
does  not  retain,  as  it  does  elsewhere,  officers  who  have  grown  old 
or  infirm  in  the  service  under  the  flag.  If  the  American  officer 
tenders  his  resignation  or  is  mustered  out,  without  any  previous 
notice,  with  the  regiment  to  which  he  belonged,  he  launches  at 
once  into  other  pursuits  until  the  formation  of  some  new  regi- 
ment, when  he  is  almost  certain,  if  Avorthy  of  it,  to  regain  his  for- 
mer position.  He  who  has  remained  faithful  to  the  profession  of 
arms  has  laid  up  something  against  the  day  of  his  possible  dis- 
charge, when  he  may  console  himself  by  saying  that  it  is  never 
too  late  in  life  to  strive  after  fortune.  Since  that  time,  this  sys- 
tem has  been  entirely  changed  by  a  law  on  retiring  allowances 
and  military  pensions.  This  law  seems  to  have  been  a  necessary 
one,  but  it  is  as  yet  too  early  to  appreciate  its  effects.  Time  alone 
will  show  whether  legislation,  in  this  case,  was  a  happy  inspi- 
ration. 

Before  concluding  this  chapter  it  remains  for  us  to  speak  of 
the  organization  of  the  different  corps  which  composed  the  regular 
army ;  for  although  their  effective  strength  has  been  subjected  to 
strange  vicissitudes,  the  organization  itself  has  experienced  but 
few  changes. 

J  The  cavalry  Avas  disbanded  after  the  war  of  1812;  and  not 
until  1833  was  it  revived,  in  the  First  Dragoons.  The  Second 
Dragoons  was  created  in  1836;  the  Third  in  1846,  as  also  the 
mounted  riflemen,  who,  notwithstanding  their  appellation,  served 
as  foot-soldiers  in  the  war  with  Mexico.  The  Third  Dragoons 
having  been  disbanded  at  the  close  of  that  war.  Congress  ordered, 
in  1855,  the  formation  of  two  new  regiments,  bearing  the  name 
of  1st  and  2d  Cavalry.  These  five  regiments,  under  their  dif- 
ferent designations,  were  to  represent  various  arms  in  the  service : 
the  two  last  regiments,  composing  the  light  cavalry,  the  mounted 
riflemen,  were  to  be  simply  infantry  on  horseback.  At  the  very 
outset  of  the  war  of  secession,  it  was  evident  that  the  long-range 
weajjons  rendered  all  such  distinctions  useless  in  a  contest  in 

become  disabled  or  who  have  attained  a  certain  specified  age  in  the  military  oi 
naval  service. — Ed. 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  25 

Avlilcli  the  dragoon  should  be  the  true  type  of  all  cavalrymen  ; 
and  consequently  all  five  regiments  were  united,  August  3,  1861, 
under  the  sole  designation  of  cavalry ;  a  sixth  regiment  was  added 
to  them  under  the  same  law. 

The  number  of  infantry  regiments  varied  frequently.  During 
the  war  with  Mexico  it  reached  seventeen ;  then  it  was  again  re- 
duced, but  never  below  eight. 

The  artillery,  on  the  contrary,  consisting  of  four  regiments, 
preserved  that  organization  until  1861,  but  the  number  of  com- 
panies of  which  they  were  composed  varied  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  service. 

The  places  created  by  the  formation  of  new  regiments  were 
not  all  given  to  officers  of  the  army ;  a  certain  number  of  these 
commissions  were  always  held  in  reserve  for  the  proteges  of  the 
President  and  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  especially  of  those 
Congressmen  whose  votes  had  contributed  to  secure  this  increase 
of  the  army,  but,  it  must  be  admitted,  this  patronage  was  judi- 
ciously bestowed,  and  among  the  new  officers  were  generally  to 
be  found  many  former  volunteers  who  had  already  seen  service. 
We  shall  mention  one  instance  of  the  kind  which  reflects  credit 
on  the  discernment  of  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  under  whose  admin- 
istration of  the  War  Department  the  1st  and  2d  Cavalry  were 
organized.  The  field  officers  of  these  two  regiments  were  taken 
from  the  army  in  active  service,  as  also  one  half  of  the  whole 
number  of  captains  and  lieutenants ;  the  remainder  were  chosen 
from  civil  life.  Out  of  these  one  himdred  officers,  forty-one 
became,  a  few  years  later,  generals  in  the  Northern  or  in  the 
Southern  armies,  and  six  of  them  held  commands-in-chief. 

All  the  regiments  were  organized  in  the  same  manner,  each 
being  provided  with  ten  captains,  whose  command  took  the  name 
of  company,  even  in  the  cavalry  and  the  artillery,  where  it  cor- 
responded with  the  terms  squadron  and  battery.  The  regiments 
of  infantry,  instead  of  comprising  three  battalions,  were  formed, 
in  reality,  of  but  a  single  one ;  but  each  had  a  colonel,  a  lieu- 
tenant-colonel, and  a  major,  the  division  of  the  regiments  among 
the  frontier  stations  and  along  the  coast  rendering  this  large  num- 
ber of  superior  officers  necessary.  Their  effective  total  of  one 
thousand  to  twelve  hundred  men  was  seldom  attained,  recruiting 


26  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

being  always  difficult.  A  wise  ordinance  of  President  Monroe 
requiring  that  every  reduction  of  the  army  should  bear  equally 
upon  all  organized  regiments,  those  only  could  be  discharged 
whose  strength  was  found  to  be  diminished  by  more  than  one- 
half,  in  order  to  preserve  complete  cadres  ready  to  receive  recruits 
in  case  of  necessity.  Unfortunately,  however,  while  the  observ- 
ance of  this  rule  was  being  enforced,  the  authorities,  in  the  exercise 
of  an  imprudent  economy,  neglected  to  fill  the  vacancies  of  officers 
in  the  regiments  thus  reduced ;  so  that  in  the  end  the  cadres  were 
found  to  be  as  insignificant  as  the  total  effective  force. 

The  proportion  of  artillery  up  to  1861,  and  its  immunity  from 
any  important  reductions,  can  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  the 
valuable  services  constantly  required  of  it.  It  has  always  had  the 
charge  of  occupying,  maintaining,  and  arming  the  fortified  posts 
which  have  served,  and  still  serve,  as  finger-posts  to  the  march  of 
civilization  across  the  prairies  of  the  West. 

The  somewhat  numerous  body  of  officers  of  the  engineer  corps 
enjoyed  the  same  immunity,  but,  generally  speaking,  it  never  had 
but  about  one  hundred  soldiers  under  its  command,  who  were 
at  the  same  time  sappers  and  pontoniers.  As  to  the  general 
staff,  such  a  branch  of  the  military  service  has  never  existed  in 
America.  The  small  regular  army  having  only  been  brought  to- 
gether once  during  the  first  forty-six  years  of  its  existence,  the 
want  of  such  a  corps  was  but  little  felt.  During  the  Mexican 
expedition  the  army  suffered  greatly  on  account  of  this  blank,  but 
in  the  corps  of  engineers  it  found  young  and  excellent  officers 
who,  by  their  zeal  and  intelligence,  supplied  the  want  of  a  general 
staff.  It  was  only,  therefore,  in  1861,  when  it  was  no  longer  a 
question  of  handling  twenty  thousand  regular  troops,  but  one 
hundred  thousand  volunteers,  that  all  the  inconveniences  arising 
from  the  absence  of  such  an  important  machinery  were  sensibly 
felt. 

The  functions  of  the  general  staff  were  divided  among  differ- 
ent corps.  Officers  detached  from  their  regiments,  and  volunteers 
invested  with  temporary  rank,  performed  the  duties  of  aides-de- 
camp to  the  generals  under  the  name  of  personal  aides.  All  the 
topographical,  geodetiial,  and  hydrographical  works  were  en- 
trusted to  the  corps  of  topographical  engineers,  to  whom  we  are 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  27 

indebted  for  the  liandsome  publications  of  the  Co«si  Survey,  2i\i^ 
who,  in  1862,  were  merged  into  the  engineer  corps,  just  as  our 
geographical  engineers  were  formerly  merged  into  the  general 
staff.  The  other  functions  of  the  latter  corps,  particularly  those 
concerning  the  personnel  of  armies  in  the  field,  were  entrusted  to 
special  officers  of  administration. 

Any  details  regarding  the  administration  of  military  affairs, 
although  greatly  abridged,  may  appear  long  and  tedious.  Still 
they  are  necessary;  for  we  must  know  the  interior  mechanism 
of  an  army  in  order  fully  to  understand  its  movements,  and  its 
organization  is  a  mirror  wherein  its  spirit  is  reflected.  That  of 
the  regular  army,  like  one  of  those  diminutive  models  every  part 
of  which  is  equally  enlarged  and  amplified  by  some  ingenious 
process,  was  exactly  copied  at  the  time  when  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  volunteers,  whose  campaigns  we  shall  have  to  nar- 
rate, were  mustered  into  service.  In  this  narrative  we  shall  have 
to  use  technical  English  terms  in  order  to  designate  military  func- 
tions, the  exact  equivalents  of  which  do  not  exist  among  us,  and 
the  precise  meaning  of  which  it  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  we 
should  establish. 

The  administration  of  the  American  war  department  is  divided 
into  two  technical  parts.  On  one  hand  the  body  of  troops,  cav- 
alry, artillery,  and  infantry,  divided  into  regiments,  depend,  with- 
out intermedium,  on  the  department  bureaus,  having  neither 
distinctive  chief  nor  separate  management ;  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  corps  comnosed  exclusively  of  officers,  each  of  them 
under  the  special  direction  of  a  general  officer  or  colonel,  almost 
invariably  placed  in  that  position  by  right  of  seniority,  who  takes 
a  large  share  in  all  the  decisions  which  affect  them,  and  who  is 
the  only  medium  between  them  and  the  department.  The  latter 
corps  are,  in  the  first  place,  the  engineers  and  topographical 
engineers,  separated  until  1862,  and  united  since  that  period; 
and  then  the  various  branches  of  the  service,  much  more  inde- 
pendent of  each  other,  which,  with  us,  constitute  the  military 
adminstration.  Under  the  name  of  departments  they  perform 
their  functions  both  in  the  army  and  in  the  War  Department, 
where  their  hierarchical  chiefs  have  each  a  separate  bureau,  which 
nearly  corresponds  to  our  administrative  divisions  (directions). 


28  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

In  these  varied  functions  the  corps  above  mentioned  partake 
of  the  character  of  our  su|)ervising  department  (intendance),  with 
this  important  difference,  however,  that  most  of  them  are  com- 
posed of  officers  in  active  service.  Taken  from  the  army,  with 
the  exception  of  paymasters  and  surgeons,  M'ho  have  simply  an 
assimilated  military  rank,  they  do  not  leave  their  army  grade  on 
entering  upon  the  discharge  of  departmental  duties,  and  may,  by 
means  of  a  simple  exchange,  resume  their  places  in  the  ranks  of 
combatants.  They  have  therefore  the  same  prospects  as  the  lat- 
ter, and  may,  like  them,  come  out  of  their  respective  army  corps 
with  a  general's  epaulette.  The  late  war  has  shown  by  many 
examples  the  advantages  of  such  a  system  of  promotion.  Thus, 
one  of  the  generals  who  achieved  most  distinction  on  the  field 
of  battle,  Hancock,  a  simple  captain-quartermaster,  commanded 
with  success  an  army  corps,  and  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
brigadier-general  in  the  regular  army  for  his  services.  Hence  it 
is  that  rivalries  and  jealousies  are  very  rare  between  officers  of 
the  line  and  those  of  the  staff  corps,  and  the  frequency  of  rota- 
tion among  them,  by  initiating  each  in  turn  into  the  details  of 
every  branch  of  the  service,  imparts  to  them  an  amount  of  infor- 
mation that  is  found  invaluable  in  the  isolated  life  of  the  fron- 
tiers, which  entails  upon  them  such  manifold  duties.  Here,  again, 
the  Americans  have  done  well  in  not  pushing  the  system  of  spe- 
cial services  to  excess. 

The  adjutant-general's  department,  composed  of  officers  from 
the  rank  of  captain  to  that  of  colonel,  was,  in  1861,  commanded 
by  a  general  of  brigade,  who  combined  the  functions  of  superin- 
tendent of  the  personnel  of  the  department  with  those  of  chief  of 
staff  to  the  army.  The  assistant  adjutant-generals,  his  subordi- 
nates, are  divided  into  two  classes.  Some  doing  duty  in  the 
bureaus,  or  detached  on  special  service,  perform  administrative 
functions ;  the  others,  for  the  most  part,  perform  the  duties  of 
our  chiefs  and  sub-chiefs  of  staff  to  the  several  generals  in  com- 
mand. 

The  inspector-general's  department,  although  independent  of 
the  adjutant-general's,  is,  in  reality,  but  a  supplementary  branch 
of  it;  and  being  composed  solely  of  a  few  superior  officers,  it  has 
only  the  character  of  a  commission  to  inspect  the  troops  of  the  line. 


THE  REGULAR  ARMY.  29 

The  quartermaster  and  subsistence  departments  resemble  in 
most  respects  our  supervising  department  [infcndanoe). 

The  former,  organized  since  1812,  besides  the  duty  of  provid- 
ing part  of  the  supplies  for  tlie  army,  performs  certain  functions 
which,  with  us,  appertain  to  the  departments  of  engineers,  trans- 
portation, and  disbursement  of  public  moneys,  and  is  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  the  department  bureaus.  During  the  late  war  it 
disbursed  forty-three  per  cent,  of  the  total  amount  required  for 
military  expenses. 

The  subsistence  department,  having  charge  of  the  victualling 
of  troops,  the  purchase  of  provisions  at  scattered  markets,  the 
preparation,  preservation,  and  distribution  of  rations  among  the 
regiments,  is  composed  of  officers  styled  commissaries ;  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  a  colonel  was  at  the  head  of  this  department. 

The  ordnance  department  exercises  the  administrative  functions 
which  with  us  belong,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  artillery.  It  has 
not  only  charge  of  the  arsenals,  of  the  manufacture  of  arms  and 
military  equipments,  of  cannon  and  artillery  material,  of  mus- 
kets and  ammunition  of  every  kind,  of  side-arms,  saddles,  and 
harness  accoutrements,  but  also  of  their  distribution  in  each  corps. 
We  find  this  department  in  1861  under  the  direction  of  a  brigadier- 
general. 

The  departments  of  the  adjutant-general,  quartermaster,  sub- 
sistence, and  ordnance  are  represented  on  the  staif  of  each  army, 
army  corps,  active  or  territorial  division,  brigade,  and  regiment,  by 
officers  who,  while  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  chiefs  of  those 
corps,  continue  nevertheless  to  maintain  direct  relations  with  their 
respective  departments. 

Finally,  the  surgeons  and  paymasters  form  two  civil  corps,  the 
members  of  which,  as  we  have  said  before,  being  simply  assim- 
ilated in  rank  to  military  grades,  cannot  be  transferred  from  one 
corps  to  another.  They  follow  in  their  own  a  regular  order  of 
promotion,  and  each  class  is  placed  respectively  under  the  com- 
mand of  a  surgeon-general  and  a  paymaster-general.* 

*See  note  A,  in  the  Appendix  of  this  volume. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO. 

THE  organization  of  the  American  army  was  not  developed  in 
the  midst  of  absolute  peace.  The  Mexican  war  and  an 
almost  continuous  warfare  with  the  Indian  tribes  justified  its  ex- 
istence in  the  eyes  of  a  jealous  public,  kept  it  always  in  working 
order,  and  permitted  it  to  acquire  a  useful  experience.  They  de- 
veloped its  qualities,  while  the  nature  of  the  country  where  the 
American  army  had  to  fight,  and  the  enemies  it  encountered,  ex- 
ercised a  powerful  influence  upon  its  character  and  its  mode  of 
waging  war.  The  Mexican  campaign  constitutes  the  most  bril- 
liant epoch  in  its  history  previous  to  the  great  struggle  of  1861. 
That  campaign  was  the  means  of  forming  nearly  all  the  military 
chiefs  who,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  have  been  noted  in  the  com- 
bats we  shall  have  to  describe.  It  inspired  the  stories  of  the 
hivouciG  fifteen  years  later,  when  the  captain  and  the  lieutenant  of 
1847,  now  in  command  of  volunteer  armies  or  army  corps,  found 
themselves  opposed  to  the  companions  of  their  early  experiences 
in  arms.  The  war  of  1812  had  not  been  a  glorious  one.  That 
of  Mexico,  on  the  contrary,  was  a  series  of  successes  scarcely  inter- 
rupted by  a  few  insignificant  checks.  It  ofl^ered  the  soldier  all  the 
interest  of  regular  warfare,  with  its  pitched  battles,  the  names  of 
which  can  be  mentioned  and  their  trophies  shown,  and  at  the  same 
time  all  the  attractions  that  adventurous  spirits  find  in  fighting 
in  a  country  but  half  civilized.  It  was,  in  short,  a  decisive  trial 
of  the  military  institutions  of  America ;  if  the  regular  soldiers 
had  already  been  inured  to  the  privations  and  fatigues  that 
awaited  them  in  Mexico,  if  the  mongrel  race  they  had  to  en- 
counter there  was  not  superior  in  courage  to  the  Indians  of  the 
prairies,  they  had  never  before  been  brouglit  together  as  one  army, 
nor  fought  otherwise  than  as  partisans.     The  Mexican  war  was 

30 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  31 

essentially  their  work;  they  were  in  a  majority  in  the  array  of 
General  Scott,  who  made  the  decisive  campaign ;  the  volunteers 
were  only  their  auxiliaries ;  and  even  where  the  latter  happened 
to  be  more  numerous  than  the  former,  the  regular  officers  retained, 
nevertheless,  the  exclusive  control  of  all  operations. 

Those  volunteers  did  not  much  resemble  the  class  in  the  same 
service  who,  in  1861,  truly  represented  the  nation  in  arms,  for  no 
enthusiasm  had  stimulated  their  enlistment.  The  war  which  was 
undertaken  against  Mexico  was  iniquitous.  The  men  of  the 
South  who  then  governed  the  Union,  President  Polk  and  his 
agent  Mr.  Slidell — the  same  we  have  subsequently  seen  in  Europe 
pleading  in  behalf  of  the  Confederate  cause  in  the  name  of  the 
riffht  of  nationalities — alarmed  at  the  increasing  influence  of  the 
free  States,  had  sought  to  counterbalance  it  in  the  councils  of  the 
republic  by  the  creation  of  new.  slave  States.  To  accomplish 
this  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  dismember  Mexico  and  to  intro- 
duce slavery  into  the  territories  that  would  be  taken  from  her. 
It  was  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  this  political  scheme  that 
war  was  declared,  just  as  at  other  periods  filibusters  were  encour- 
aged to  carry  trouble  into  Cuba  or  into  Central  America.  The 
North  repudiated  this  odious  policy ;  consequently,  it  M^as  only 
represented  by  a  contingent  of  less  than  twenty  thousand  volun- 
teers, and  even  the  majority  of  these  only  entered  the  service  to 
sustain  the  national  honor,  when  Scott,  detained  at  Puebla  for 
want  of  troops,  found  himself  seriously  compromised.  About 
forty  thousand  volunteers  from  the  South,  a  force  which  was  then 
considered  very  large,  were  successively  mustered  into  service: 
the  hope  of  extending  the  domain  of  slavery  had  fired  their  ardor. 
Among  those  most  in  earnest  might  already  be  noticed  Colonel 
Jeiferson  Davis  at  the  head  of  a  regiment  of  Mississippi  volun- 
teers. Ambitious,  impetuous,  and  eloquent,  this  old  West  Pointer 
was  trying  to  achieve  at  the  same  time  popularity  with  his  party, 
and  the  military  reputation  which,  when  the  crisis  came,  was  to 
place  him  in  possession  of  the  War  Department.  He  accom- 
plished that  double  object ;  and  at  a  later  period,  when  the  great 
rebellion,  of  which  he  was  the  soul,  broke  out,  he  received  the 
honors  of  the  first  Confederate  successes ;  but  when  defeat  fol- 
lowed, his  former  accomplices  accused  him  of  having  accelerated 


32  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  common  ruin  by  imperiously  trammelling  generals  abler  than 
himself. 

But,  generally  speaking,  let  us  remark  again,  these  Southern 
volunteers  did  not  resemble  those  who  would  have  taken  up  arms 
in  support  of  a  truly  national  cause.  They  were,  for  the  most 
part,  adventurers  recruited  from  among  that  idle,  restless,  and 
adventurous  population  which  the  Southern  leaders  had  made  the 
pioneers  of  their  institutions  and  had  alternately  thrust  upon  the 
Antilles  and  the  far  West.  They  were  not  without  military  quali- 
fications :  always  with  rifle  in  hand,  by  turns  soldiers,  colonists,  or 
traders,  they  had  already  fought  as  improvised  citizens  of  Texas 
at  the  time  when  the  North  and  the  South  were  contending  for  the 
supremacy  of  influence  in  that  ephemeral  republic.  They  had 
already  measured  strength  with  the  Mexican  soldier,  and  at  San 
Jacinto  they  had  learned  to  outwit  his  vigilance  and  to  excel  his 
skill  in  horsemanship.  The  Americans,  therefore,  did  not  even 
wait  for  the  declaration  of  war  to  launch  out  into  the  most  haz- 
ardous expeditions.  Between  the  populated  districts  of  Mexico 
and  the  boundaries  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  there  was  then  a 
vast  extent  of  country,  almost  untenanted,  and  inhabited  only  by 
roving  Indians  and  a  few  settlers  of  Spanish  origin.  At  certain 
periods  this  desert  was  ploughed  by  large  armed  caravans,  which 
carried  on  a  trade  of  more  than  ten  millions  annually,  by  follow- 
ing two  routes,  equally  difficult  and  dangerous.  One,  starting 
from  the  rich  mining  districts  of  Chihuahua,  pursued  its  course 
by  way  of  El  Paso,  Santa  Fe,  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  Fort 
Leavenworth,  on  the  borders  of  the  Missouri ;  the  other,  leaving 
Monterey,  crossed  the  Rio  Grande  and  Texas,  and  finally  reached 
the  settlements  of  Arkansas  and  Louisiana.  Although  nominally 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  Mexico,  this  country,  of  which  all  ad- 
venturers had  glimpses  in  their  golden  dreams,  was  in  reality 
the  land  of  God,  as  the  Arabs  express  it.  The  first  object  of  the 
war  was  to  wrest  this  territory  from  the  feeble  hands  that  were 
unable  to  turn  it  to  account.  So  that,  while  we  find  the  army 
which  Scott  led  into  Mexico  proceeding  with  great  regularity,  and 
only  fighting  to  compel  the  enemy  to  come  to  terms,  the  troops 
under  Taylor,  which  attacked  Mexico  by  way  of  the  Rio  Grande, 
were  a  colonizing  army.     To  distinguish  them  from  the  Army 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  33 

of  Invasion  commanded  by  General  Scott,  they  were  called  the 
Army  of  Occupation,  and  they  took  possession  of  a  country 
already  considered  as  conquered. 

This  country  seemed  to  be  protected  by  its  own  immensity  ;  but 
the  Americans,  who  have  been  too  often  accused  of  tardiness,  soon 
overcame  this  obstacle.  Their  columns  swept  rapidly  over  the 
territory,  while  a  few  insignificant  bands  rushed  upon  it  with  a 
degree  of  audacity  which  demands  our  attention  for  a  moment. 

At  the  outset  of  tlie  war  General  Kearny  starts  from  Fort 
Leavenworth  with  twenty-seven  hundred  men,  for  the  purpose  of 
conquering  New  Mexico,  the  State  of  Chihuahua,  and  California 
— countries  the  surface  of  which  is  three  or  four  times  as  larg-e  as 
that  of  France.  This  column,  however,  consists  only  of  three 
squadrons  of  regular  cavalry,  the  rest  being  made  up  of  volun- 
teers recruited  in  haste,  two  regiments  of  Missouri  cavalry,  one 
battalion  of  Mormons,  and  some  artillery.  A  considerable  train 
of  provisions  and  ammunition  accompanies  them,  for  they  have 
to  cross  a  desert  of  four  hundred  leagues  in  order  to  reach  the 
capital  of  New  Mexico,  Santa  Fe,  which  is  situated  between  two 
branches  of  the  Cordilleras,  upon  an  elevated  plateau  parched 
by  drought,  and  where  there  is  only  to  be  met  a  narrow  strip 
of  grass  on  the  margin  of  the  little  river,  called  even  at  this 
point  the  Rio  Grande.  At  the  entrance  of  this  plateau  the 
Mexicans  occuj)y  a  defile  of  less  than  twelve  metres  in  width. 
The  Americans  enter  it  with  ,all  their  train,  well  knowing  that 
in  the  event  of  their  being  driven  back  into  the  desert  which 
stretches  behind  them,  they  must  perish  to  a  man  ;  but  their  auda- 
city disconcerts  the  Mexicans,  who  disappear  at  their  approach, 
and  fifty  days  after  quitting  the  borders  of  the  Missouri,  Kearny 
and  his  little  band  enter  the  capital  without  striking  a  blow. 

But  this  conquest  was  only  the  first  stage  in  the  undertaking; 
it  has  scarcely  been  secured  when  Kearny,  with  a  simple  escort 
of  one  hundred  dragoons  and  two  mountain-howitzers,  launches 
out  into  a  new  desert  of  four  hundred  leagues  in  extent  to  join 
hands  with  Colonel  Fremont  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  and 
share  with  him  the  conquest  of  California.  Fremont,  a  skilful 
and  intrepid  explorer,  had  preceded  him  a  year  before,  prosecut- 

VoL.  I.— 3 


34  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ing  his  scientific  researches  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  Indians,  some 
white  hunters,  and  a  few  adventurous  companions  like  himself, 
over  whom,  thanks  to  his  energy,  he  exercised  an  absolute  control. 
They  wandered  for  a  considerable  time  among  those  immense 
solitudes,  driven  by  chance  or  necessity,  studying  the  elements  of 
the  future  prosperity  of  those  settlers  of  whom  they  were  the  fore- 
runners, and  from  time  to  time  making  their  sudden  appearance 
among  the  Mexican  settlements  of  California,  where  they  were 
justly  regarded  as  suspicious  visitors.  One  day  they  were  fired 
upon,  and  thus  they  learned  that  war  had  broken  out  on  the  Rio 
Grande.  Fremont  determined  to  revenge  himself  by  conquering 
the  province  from  which  the  inhabitants  had  sought  to  expel  him. 
His  boldness  and  sagacity  assured  him  an  easy  victory  over  the 
ignorant  assurance  of  the  Mexicans.  His  ardor  is  communicated 
to  all  his  companions,  and  he  finds  powerful  allies  among  the 
American  settlers,  who,  by  crossing  the  Rocky  Mountains,  had 
already,  for  some  years  past,  penetrated  into  California.  A  few 
days  sufficed  him  to  put  the  Mexican  authorities  to  flight,  to  pro- 
claim the  independence  of  California,  and  annex  it  to  the  United 
States.  In  the  mean  time,  one  of  those  counter-revolutions  so 
common  in  Mexico  broke  out  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State,  at 
the  very  moment  when  Kearny,  who  had  been  travelling  with  his 
escort  for  the  last  two  months  without  receiving  any  news  from 
the  outside  world,  was  approaching  the  first  California  settle- 
ments. After  exploring,  in  the  nydst  of  unheard-of  hardships, 
the  routes  to  be  followed  by  the  caravans,  to  which  he  opened 
new  outlets,  he  was  in  hopes  of  finding  some  rest  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  government  founded  by  Fremont.  Instead  of  this, 
at  the  end  of  his  last  terrible  march  of  twenty-five  leagues  across 
a  waterless  desert,  he  encountered,  December  6,  1846,  a  party  of 
hostile  cavalry,  who  disputed  his  passage.  The  Mexicans  -were 
not  superior  in  number  to  the  Americans ;  but  as  they  carried  no 
baggage  and  were  supplied  with  fresh  horses,  they  had  a  great 
advantage  over  an  adversary  who  had  travelled  eight  hundred 
leagues  without  receiving  a  single  remount.  One  half  of  Kear- 
ny's soldiers  were  on  foot  escorting  the  guns,  fifty  of  them  were 
mounted  on  mules  which  had  been  unharnessed  from  the  wagons 
in   proportion  as  the  train   became  lightened  of  iti  load,  while 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  35 

twelve  dragoons  only  had  retained  their  horses.  These,  with  the 
officers,  constituted  the  light  cavalry.  The  latter,  notwithstand- 
ing their  small  number,  charged  the  enemy  as  soon  as  he  came  in 
sight,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  troop  behind,  who  tried  in  vain  to 
urge  their  wornout  mules  forward.  At  first  the  Mexicans  made 
a  show  of  resistance,  then  fled ;  subsequently,  perceiving  by  the 
irregularity  of  their  motions,  that  their  adversaries,  like  the  Cu- 
riatii,  had  allowed  themselves  to  become  separated,  they  wheeled 
round  abruptly,  and  tlieir  long  lances  unhorsed  their  too  confid- 
ing adversaries  one  after  the  other.  Kearny  himself  received  sev- 
eral wounds.  Fortunately  for  him,  the  heavy  cavalry  had  time 
to  come  up ;  and  notwithstanding  the  somewhat  unmartial  ap- 
pearance of  the  animals,  its  approach  was  sufficient  to  disperse  the 
Mexicans.  If  the  Americans  had  been  beaten  in  the  battle  of 
San  Pascual,  they  would  inevitably  have  perished  of  hunger 
and  destitution.  Althougli  victorious,  they  were  obliged  to  repel 
for  two  days  longer  the  attacks  of  their  adversaries.  Fortunately 
for  them,  the  naval  division  of  Commodore  Stockton  was  waiting 
for  them  at  San  Diego,  and  a  detachment  of  marines  and  soldiers, 
sent  by  the  latter,  brought  them  on  the  11th  of  De(!ember  the 
succor  they  had  so  greatly  needed.  After  fifteen  days'  rest  at  San 
Diego,  Kearny's  small  troop,  reinforced  by  more  than  four  hundred 
and  fifty  men,  resumed  their  march  under  the  supreme  command  of 
Stockton.  On  the  8th  of  January,  1847,  at  the  river  San  Gabriel, 
the  Americans  dispersed  the  hostile  forces  assembled  against  tliem, 
and  beat  them  again  the  next  day  before  Los  Angeles.  After  a 
violent  quarrel  with  Stockton,  Avho  claimed  the  chief  command, 
Kearny,  continuing  his  march,  was  joined  by  a  battalion  of  Mor- 
mons, which  had  arrived  from  the  North,  and  at  last  occupied 
Upper  California  in  concert  with  Lieutenant-Colonel  Fremont. 
During  this  expedition,  which  secured  to  its  general  the  title 
of  governor  of  the  new  State,  the  two  regiments  of  cavalry  that 
Kearny  had  left  at  Santa  Fe  did  not  remain  inactive.  One, 
commanded  by  Colonel  Sterling  Price,  whom  we  shall  find  later 
in  the  Confederate  army,  was  making  strenuous  effi3rts  to  crush 
the  insurrection  of  the  Mexican  settlers.  The  other,  under  the 
command  of  Colonel  Doniphan,  traversed,  in  the  heart  of  winter, 
the  rugged  mountains  inhabited  by  the  Navajos  Indians,  the  only 


36  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

pastoral  people  on  all  the  continent;  and,  after  concluding  a  treaty 
of  friendship  with  them,  this  little  band  had  taken  a  southern  di- 
rection toward  the  distant  city  of  Chihuahua,  in  the  hope  of 
joining  Taylor's  army,  which  had  crossed  the  Rio  Grande,  and 
had  just  invaded  the  province  of  Monterey. 

Doniphan  had  only  eight  hundred  mounted  Missourians,  who 
were  subsequently  reinforced  by  about  one  hundred  artillerymen, 
with  four  pieces  of  cannon.  He  was  moreover  obliged  to  accept 
the  company  of  a  caravan  of  American  traders,  who,  after  reach- 
ing Santa  Fe  by  crossing  the  desert,  were  only  waiting  for  an 
opportunity  to  introduce  American  goods  into  Mexico  under  the 
protection  of  the  national  flag,  in  spite  of  custom-house  officers, 
Indians,  and  brigands.  These  warlike  traders,  with  their  train 
of  three  hundred  and  fifteen  wagons,  indemnified  the  troops  for 
whatever  trouble  they  might  have  caused  them,  by  organizing 
among  their  mule-drivers  two  companies,  which  rendered  essential 
service  to  the  camp-guard. 

The  little  band  has  scarcely  set  out  when  it  finds  itself  assailed 
by  all  the  dangers  which  beset  the  traveller  in  those  inhospitable 
regions ;  in  the  Jornada  del  3£uerto,  a  vast  dried-up  plateau  of 
thirty-five  leagues  in  length,  it  finds  neither  a  drop  of  water  nor 
a  tree ;  scarcely  a  few  thorny  plants,  Avhich,  blazing  like  straw, 
cannot  impart  any  heat  to  the  soldiers  benumbed  with  cold ;  their 
cinders,  quickly  cooled  off,  alone  indicate,  in  the  midst  of  that 
vast  solitude,  the  track  of  the  detachments  which  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  separate  from  the  main  body  in  orier  to  facili- 
tate the  march.  Owing  to  the  want  of  water,  the  Americans  find 
it  impossible  to  make  a  halt  until  they  at  last  reach  the  boundary 
of  the  desert  which  has  been  so  appropriately  denominated  the 
Dead  man's  halt. 

But  a  slight  skirmish  soon  makes  them  forget  their  hardships, 
and  delivers  to  them  the  defile  of  JEl  Paso  del  Norte,  an  import- 
ant strategic  poirt ;  it  is  the  southern  gate  of  New  Mexico,  the 
only  one  which  opens  upon  the  rich  lands  of  Central  Mexico.  The 
Rio  Grande,  passing  through  this  wild  gorge,  falls,  in  a  succession 
of  cascades,  from  the  high  table-lands  into  the  rich  valley,  where 
it  serves  as  the  frontier  of  Texas.  From  this  point  the  column 
advances  slowly,  for  it  is  necessary  to  feed  the  animals  and  to 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  37 

reconnoitre  a  route  almost  unknown.  It  has  left  the  fertile  bor- 
ders of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  the  new  deserts  it  has  to  cross  have 
dangers  and  sufferings  in  store  of  a  totally  different  kind  from 
those  it  has  hitherto  encountered.  These  deserts  consist  of  vast 
plains  of  burning  sand  that  rise  with  the  least  puff  of  wind  and 
give  way  under  the  footsteps  of  the  soldier  exhausted  by  the  heat. 
The  last  stage  in  those  dreadful  solitudes  proved  nearly  ftital  to 
the  Americans ;  it  was  of  twenty-five  leagues  and  without  water ; 
the  wagons  sank  into  the  sand  up  to  the  axle-tree ;  the  drooping 
animals  being  no  longer  able  to  move  them,  they  were  abandoned, 
and  the  cares  for  the  morrow  were  forgotten  in  the  all-absorbing 
anxiety  to  reach  the  nearest  water-sources,  when  a  friendly  rain- 
storm suddenly  burst  forth,  and  by  restoring  strength  to  the 
beasts  of  burden,  saved  the  train  and  the  entire  force. 

But  this  danger  was  scarcely  over  when  the  little  army  was 
threatened  by  another.  After  the  sterile  desert  comes  the  prairie 
with  its  tall  dry  grasses.  The  march  has  been  fatiguing,  for  the 
whole  day  has  been  wasted  in  running  after  large  herds  of  cattle, 
which,  guarded  by  Mexican  vaqueros,  have  finally  disappeared  in 
the  distant  horizon.  They  have  hardly  reached  the  margin  of  a 
lake,  near  which  both  men  and  beasts  are  endeavoring  to  procure 
some  refreshing  rest,  when  the  most  formidable  foe  to  emigrants, 
the  prairie  fire,  announces  its  approach.  Lighted  by  the  revenge- 
ful hand  of  some  vaquero,  or  caused,  it  may  be,  by  burning  cin- 
ders neglected  at  the  morning  halt,  the  conflagration  appears  sud- 
denly above  the  heights  which  border  the  lake,  sweeps  down  rap- 
idly, and  quickly  envelops  its  waters  in  flames  and  smoke.  The 
camp  is  broken  up  in  haste ;  every  living  thing  flies  helter-skelter 
before  the  terrible  element  which  outstrips  the  swiftest  foot  in  ve- 
locity with  an  implacable  uniformity  of  motion.  The  ammu- 
nition wagons,  covered  with  sparks  which  the  wind  has  driven 
before  it,  are  dragged  into  the  lake  (fortunately  not  very  deep), 
where  the  drivers  sprinkle  water  over  them ;  the  officers  lead 
their  horses  into  the  water  and  then  make  them  trample  the  grass 
with  their  wetted  hoofs.  All  in  vain  ;  the  flames  continue  to  ad- 
vance. At  last  a  desperate  remedy  is  resorted  to ;  after  cutting 
down  the  tall  grapses  which  surround  them  with  their  sabres  and 
taking  refuge  witnin  the  space  thus  cleared,  the  troopers  kindle 


38  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

another  fire  all  around  them.  The  circle  thus  formed  soon  gains 
in  proportions ;  on  one  side  this  new  fire  advances  slowly  toward 
the  great  conflagration  of  the  prairie,  and  stops  its  progress  by 
interposing  an  impassable  barrier,  destroying  the  food  it  Avas 
about  to  devour.  On  the  other  side,  driven  by  the  wind,  the 
fire  spreads  rapidly  in  advance  of  the  American  column,  which 
follows  it  step  by  step  over  the  burnt  grasses  until  the  fiery  tem- 
pest which  had  threatened  to  consume  them  is  left  far  behind. 
Findino;  themselves  at  last  freed  from  the  embraces  of  the  most 
cruel  of  all  deaths,  men  and  beasts  then  sink  upon  the  still  smok- 
ing and  parched-up  ground,  caring  for  nothing  but  to  procure  a 
little  of  that  repose  which  is  so  delightful  after  a  great  danger. 

Watch  must  be  kept,  however,  for  the  vicinity  of  an  enemy 
superior  in  number,  although  not  yet  visible,  is  made  manifest 
by  those  multitudinous  signs  which  a  prairie  life  teaches  one  never 
to  overlook.  The  vaqueros  who  have  caused  all  the  herds  of 
cattle  to  disappear  from  those  vast  grazing-grounds,  and  the  un- 
known hand  that  has  kindled  the  prairie  fire  so  as  to  carry  the 
conflagration  into  the  American  camp,  have,  no  doubt,  obeyed  the 
orders  of  this  enemy.  The  decisive  hour  has  arrived,  and  the 
little  band  prepares  for  battle.  All  the  wagons  of  the  army,  both 
light  and  heavy,  are  formed  into  four  parallel  lines  at  intervals 
of  fifty  feet.  The  artillery  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  each  inter- 
vening space ;  the  mounted  men  occupy  the  right  and  left  wings, 
while  the  light  companies  deploy  and  scout  upon  the  road.  In- 
stead of  marching  in  a  single  column,  easy  to  be  broken,  the 
train  forms  thus  a  compact  mass,  behind  which  the  combatants, 
concealing  their  number,  can  entrench  themselves  in  case  of  at- 
tack, and  whence  it  is  yet  easy  for  them  to  emerge  to  form  upon 
any  point  of  that  moving  square.  At  night  all  the  wagons, 
ranged  in  a  circle  and  strongly  tied  together,  are  formed  into  a 
corral,  a  kind  of  temporary  fortification  within  which  the  draught- 
animals  are  confined.  In  the  event  of  a  fight,  as  soon  as  the 
troops  are  engaged  outside  of  the  train,  the  corral  is  formed, 
and  its  defence  is  entrusted  to  the  traders  and  the  mule-drivers. 

At  last,  after  a  long  journey,  without  water,  February  28, 
1847,  they  reach  the  borders  of  Rio  Sacramento,  when,  in  the  place 
of  a\i   encampment  where  it  had  hoped  to  find  rest,  the  little 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  39 

American  army  beholds  four  lines  of  redoubts  erected  upon  pre- 
cipitous heights  and  occupied  by  four  or  five  thousand  Mexicans. 
True  to  their  customs,  the  Mexicans  were  thus  compelling  the 
Americans  to  fight  after  a  fiitigaing  march;  but  if  it  be  consid- 
ered clever  tactics  to  force  an  adversary  to  assume  the  offensive 
under  such  circumstances,  the  party  thus  acting  should  at  least 
have  made  sure  of  being  able  to  withstand  the  ardor  which  the 
sight  of  the  refreshing  stream  infused  into  those  whom  it  was  in- 
tended to  drive  from  its  approaches. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  neighborino;  haciendas  had  g-athered  in 
groups  on  the  heights  which  border  the  Sacramento,  some  merely 
to  look  at  those  foreigners  who  had  come  from  such  a  long  dis- 
tance; others  to  aid  in  crushing  them  as  soon  as  victory  had 
declared  against  them.  They  followed  with  astonishment  the 
movements  of  the  American  column,  which,  enveloped  by  its  long 
lineS"  of  wagons,  had  abandoned  its  original  direction  in  order  to 
describe  a  large  circuit  upon  its  right.  When  the  Mexicans 
understood  the  intentions  of  the  Americans,  the  first  line  of 
redoubts  had  been  turned  and  the  second  vigorously  charged. 
They  had  yet  time,  however,  to  change  front  and  advance  en 
masse  to  the  defence  of  this  second  line.  The  Americans  were 
exposed  to  a  slanting  fire ;  but  the  Mexicans  having  placed  their 
guns  on  the  summit  of  the  hill,  in  the  belief  that  the  higher  the 
position  the  stronger  it  must  be,  their  plunging  shots  killed  but 
one  man  among  the  assailants.  The  latter,  however,  were  checked 
for  a  moment  by  a  deep  ravine.  The  first  battalion  of  Doniphan, 
protected  by  two  howitzers  that  had  arrived  at  a  gallop  to  come  into 
battery  fifty  paces  from  the  Mexican  works,  attempted  to  carry  them 
without  dismounting,  and  was  firing  in  vain  upon  their  defend- 
ers. But  the  second  battalion,  having  dismounted,  dislodged 
the  enemy,  who  abandoned  all  his  entrenchments  and  allowed 
himself  to  be  driven  from  post  to  post  until  his  retreat  became  a 
perfect  rout.  The  Missouri  volunteers  had  fought  equally  well 
on  foot  and  on  horseback ;  but  the  success  was  chiefly  due  to  the 
officer  who  had  so  boldly  brought  up  his  two  howitzers.  The  Mexi- 
cans left  behind  them  three  hundred  wounded  and  ten  pieces  of 
cannon,  and  on  the  following  day  the  victors  entered  Chihuahua. 

But  in  this  town  Doniphan  received  news  which  rendered    lis 


40  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

position  singularly  perilous.  General  Wool,  who  had  left  Texas 
with  a  considerable  force  for  the  purpose  of  joining  him,  had 
failed  to  make  his  appearance.  A  mountain  too  steep  for  his 
train,  the  existence  of  which  he  had  not  known,  had  obliged  him 
to  abandon  the  direction  of  Chihuahua,  and  he  had  retraced  his 
steps  towards  the  encampments  of  Taylor  on  the  lower  Rio 
Grande.  That  general,  weakened  by  the  departure  of  his  best 
troops  for  Vera  Cruz,  and  himself  greatly  exposed,  had  detained 
him  at  Saltillo.  Wool  thus  found  himself  at  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  leagues  from  Doniphan,  and  utterly  unable  to 
effect  a  junction  with  him. 

Isolated  in  a  town  of  twenty-six  thousand  inhabitants,  in  the 
heart  of  a  hostile  country,  having  received  neither  succor  nor  a 
dollar  since  the  commencement  of  the  campaign,  those  eight  hun- 
dred men,  whose  term  of  enlistment  had  only  two  months  more 
to  run,  had  some  cause  to  fear  that  they  might  find  themselves  in 
some  Mexican  prison  when  their  time  of  service  expired.  To 
beat  a  retreat  would  have  been  to  acknowledge  their  weakness, 
and  to  draw  upon  themselves  an  adversary  whose  forces  increased 
at  the  slightest  indication  of  success.  They  settled  down  in  the 
city  with  a  degree  of  assurance  which  disconcerted  their  enemies, 
avowed  or  concealed.  The  traders  unloaded  their  wagons  and 
opened  a  fair.  Strict  police  regulations,  an  entirely  new  thing 
in  Chihuahua,  were  maintained  by  the  Americans.  Men  and 
animals  thus  rested  themselves  for  two  months,  and  prepared  for 
the  new  haraships  they  would  have  some  time  to  encounter. 

At  last,  one  day  some  bold  troopers  who  had  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing the  headquarters  of  General  Wool  brought  back  an  order  to  re- 
join the  army  of  occupation  at  Saltillo.  The  column  took  up  once 
more  the  line  of  march,  leaving  behind  it  the  towu  of  Chihua- 
hua, where  they  had  lived  in  peace  and  plenty,  together  with  its 
listless  population,  which  looked  upon  their  departure  with  the 
same  emotions  with  which  it  had  witnessed  their  arrival,  consid- 
ering them  as  powerful  travellers  whose  visit,  if  not  too  long, 
presented  a  curious  spectacle,  with  opportunities  of  profit.  After 
another  march  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  leagues,  they  encamped 
near  their  comrades  at  Saltillo  and  Monterey;  but  their  term 
of  enlistment  having  expired,  they  proceeded  toM'ards  the  Rio 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  ■     41 

Grande ;  and,  unmolested  by  any  enemy,  they  went  to  embark  in 
the  vicinity  of  Matamoras  for  New  Orleans 

On  their  return  to  Missouri  they  were  discharged,  having 
travelled  more  than  two  thousand  leagues  during  their  one  year's 
service.  Like  those  torrents  which  rush  down  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains  in  the  neighborhood  of  Santa  F^,  some  running  into 
the  Pacific  Ocean  and  others  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  so  did  the 
small  band  which  had  started  from  Fort  Leavenworth  become 
divided  in  the  capital  of  New  Mexico ;  and  while  Kearny  was 
making  his  entry  into  San  Francisco,  Doniphan,  after  traversing 
all  the  north  of  Mexico,  had  reached  the  shores  of  the  great 
Gulf  with  his  troops.  When  he  rejoined  Taylor  at  Saltillo,  the 
army  of  occupation  had  already  fought  several  important  battles 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  at  Monterey.  But  although 
the  troops  of  Taylor  were  more  numerous  than  those  whose 
adventurous  march  we  have  just  been  following,  the  study  of 
their  campaign  does  not  afford  the  same  interest  in  a  military 
point  of  view. 

In  that  campaign,  however,  the  Americans  received  a  few  les- 
sons which  they  subsequently  turned  to  account.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, at  the  outset,  a  squadron  of  regular  cavalry  allowed  itself 
to  be  drawn  into  a  corral,  or  hacienda  stable-yard,  where  the  half 
wild  horses  of  the  country  are  confined  and  tamed,  and  the  whole 
party  was  captured  like  a  herd  of  cattle  which  a  blind  terror  de- 
livers to  the  lasso  of  the  vaquero. 

Their  first  important  operations  came  also  very  near  terminating 
in  a  disaster.  The  line  which  connected  their  cantonments  on  the 
Rio  Grande  with  their  dep6ts  at  Point  Isabel,  near  the  mouth  of 
that  river,  ran  along  the  left  bank,  in  sight  of  the  enemy's  posts 
situated  on  the  opposite  bank.  The  Mexican  general  Arista  de- 
termined to  pierce  it  by  a  sudden  attack.  The  Americans,  warned 
in  time  by  a  fortunate  chance,  fell  back  upon  their  depots  thus 
menaced.  When  they  attempted  afterward  to  go  to  extricate  the 
little  garrison  that  had  been  left  in  their  cantonments,  they  found 
Arista  barring  their  passage  at  Palo  Alto  (May  8,  1846).  Al- 
though this  general  had  so  entirely  lost  all  presence  of  mind  that 
his  countrymen  accused  him  of  treason,  the  Americans  would 
have  been  compelled  to  beat  a  retreat  before  the  superior  number 


42  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and  position  of  the  enemy,  but  for  the  steadfastness  of  their  old 
battalions  of  regular  troops.  These  did  not  allow  themselves  to 
be  shaken  by  the  impetuous  charge  of  the  Mexican  lancers.  At 
the  risk  of  seeing  their  caissons  blown  up,  the  artillery,  always 
well  served,  rush  into  the  prairie,  which  has  been  on  fire  since  the 
beginning  of  the  engagement.  Masked  by  the  thick  smoke,  which 
the  wind  blows  into  the  Mexican  ranks,  it  takes  a  position  so  as 
to  enfilade  their  lines,  and  thus  obliges  the  enemy  to  beat  a  hasty 
retreat.  The  INIexican  rear-guard,  making  a  stand  at  Resaca  de 
la  Palma,,  tries  in  vain  to  cover  the  passage  of  the  Rio  Grande. 
The  American  artillery  is  the  first  to  attack  it ;  the  regular  dra- 
goons charge  and  disperse  it;  and  finally  the  infantry  drives  it 
into  the  stream  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  disorder.  The  Mex- 
ican army,  completely  disorganized,  sought  refuge  in  the  interior, 
where  it  suffered  the  most  terrible  privations  before  it  could  reach 
the  quiet  and  wealthy  districts  where  it  could  reorganize.  Never- 
theless, a  few  months  later  (August,  1846)  the  important  city  of 
Monterey,  which  they  had  left  behind  with  a  feeble  garrison,  was 
able  to  repel  for  two  whole  days,  while  inflicting  heavy  losses  upon 
the  assailants,  all  the  attacks  of  those  regular  troops,  accustomed 
to  victory  in  an  open  field,  whatever  might  be  the  numerical  force 
of  the  Mexicans.  The  armistice  which  the  commander,  Ampudia, 
obtained,  for  the  purpose  of  evacuating  the  city,  when  he  found 
himself  threatQned  with  famine,  was  an  homage  paid  to  the  cour- 
age of  his  soldiers. 

Both  parties  had  been  too  sanguine  of  easy  victory.  Owing  to 
this  excess  of  confidence,  the  Mexicans  were  beaten,  and  the 
Americans  were  not  in  a  condition  to  follow  up  their  success.  It 
was  necessary  to  prepare  for  a  new  campaign.  The  Americans 
organized  a  naval  expedition ;  the  Mexicans  made  a  revolution. 

Not  being  able  to  clear  a  way  across  the  immense  tract  of 
country  which  separates  Saltillo,  where  Taylor  was  encamped  with 
the  army  of  occupation,  from  ihe,  city  of  Mexico,  where  the  treaty 
of  cession  which  the  Americans  wanted  to  wrest  from  their  ad- 
versary had  to  be  sought,  they  determined  to  attack  the  enemy 
at  the  most  vulnera])le  point  on  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Some  troops  had  been  collected  at  New  Orleans  for  this  pur-  . 
pose,  but  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  take  away  from  Taylor  his 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  MEXICO.  43 

best  soldiers  to  form  the  principal  nucleus  of  the  new  expedition. 
These  preparations  occupied  a  portion  of  the  winter,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  1847,  nearly  all  the  regular  troops  that  Taylor  had 
under  his  command  were  proceeding  toward  Matamoras,  where 
they  were  to  join  the  fleet,  which  had  left  New  Orleans,  and  em- 
bark with  General  Scott  for  Vera  Cruz. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  jNIexicans,  under  the  pretext  of  a  political 
revolution  called  federalist,  had  called  into  power  a  soldier,  the 
most  able  to  cope  with  the  invaders.  When,  ten  years  before,  at 
San  Jacinto,  a  trick  of  fortune  delivered  President  Santa  Anna 
into  the  hands  of  the  warlike  American  settlers  in  Texas,  instead 
of  shooting  him,  they  had  set  him  free,  thinking,  as  they  said, 
that  they  could  not  bestow  a  more  fatal  gift  upon  their  enemies. 
In  fact,  his  restless  ambition,  capricious  and  fertile  in  expedients, 
did  not  permit  him  in  time  of  peace  either  to  submit  to  a  regular 
government,  or  to  become  himself  the  founder  of  one ;  but  in  time 
of  war,  his  failings  as  much  as  his  talents  secured  him  a  powerful 
influence  over  his  countrymen.  He  alone  could  organize  a  resist- 
ance and  create  unlooked-for  resources  to  sustain  it.  He  gave 
evidence  of  his  foresight  by  taking  advantage  of  the  moment  when 
a  portion  of  his  adversaries  had  already  abandoned  their  positions 
beyond  the  Rio  Grande  and  were  sailing  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
to  attack  those  that  had  remained  with  Taylor  before  the  naval 
expedition,  the  object  of  which  a  fortunate  accident  had  revealed 
to  him,  should  call  him  back  to  the  defence  of  Vera  Cruz.  He 
had  re-created  an  army ;  and  the  battle  which  he  fought  with 
Taylor  at  Buena  Vista  (on  the  23d  of  February,  1847)  was  cer- 
tainly the  best  contested  of  the  entire  war.  The  American  army 
had  lost  even  more  in  quality  than  in  quantity  through  the  rein- 
forcements that  had  been  sent  to  Scott ;  with  the  exception  of  the 
artillery  and  some  cavalry,  it  consisted  only  of  volunteers  who 
had  not  seen  one  year's  service.  It  is  therefore  of  interest  to  us 
to  see  them  at  work  on  the  only  occasion  when,  in  the  whole 
course  of  that  war,  they  were  left  to  themselves. 

It  is  impossible  to  find  in  the  official  accounts  of  that  battle 
the  least  evidence  of  any  concerted  movement ;  the  action  once 
commenced,  each  officer  acts  upon  his  own  impulses.  The  gen- 
eral-in-chief,  not  depending  upon  the  execution  of  his  orders,  goes 


44  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

in  person,  on  the  evening  of  the  first  day's  battle,  to  visit  hi£ 
depdts,  several  leagues  in  the  rear  of  the  army.  Returned  to  the 
field  of  battle,  he  braves  the  enemy's  fire  without  thinking  of  di- 
recting the  movements  of  his  various  corps,  which  have  become 
engaged  at  hap-hazard.  The  Mexicans,  on  this  occasion,  being 
well  handled,  vigorously  assume  the  offensive.  Some  of  the 
American  regiments  repel  the  first  shock,  while  others,  on  the 
contrary,  instantly  disperse,  deaf  to  every  appeal  to  hold  their 
ground.  The  entire  line,  thus  outflanked  at  several  points, 
wavers ;  isolated  groups  of  soldiers  are  trying  to  secure  the  best 
positions  for  holding  in  check  the  Mexican  cavalry,  which  is 
driving:  before  it  all  whom  it  has  thrown  into  confusion.  The 
artillery,  abandoned  by  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  suj)port  it, 
continues  to  fight  heroically,  thereby  delaying  the  success  of  the 
Mexicans.  But  the  latter,  trusting  to  their  numbers  (they  were 
twenty-two  thousand  against  six  thousand*),  captured  several 
guns,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  the  regular  officers,  and  of 
Colonel  Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  seriously  wounded  at  the  head 
of  his  regiment.  This  handful  of  men  would  have  been  anni- 
hilated but  for  the  timely  arrival  of  Captain  Braxton  Bragg,  who, 
crossing:  tlie  field  of  battle  from  one  side  to  the  other  with  his  bat- 
tery,  saved  them  from  utter  destruction.  Jefferson  Davis  never 
forgot  this  service,  and  ever  after  showed  great  favor  to  Bragg, 
for  which  he  was  severely  blamed  when  this  officer  had  attained 
the  highest  ranks  in  the  Confederate  army.  Among  the  other 
officers  who  distinguished  themselves  on  that  memorable  occa- 
sion, mention  has  been  made  of  the  names  of  Sherman,  Thomas, 
Reynolds,  and  French,  all  of  whom  became  celebrated  afterward 
in  the  Federal  ranks. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  artillery  on  one  side,  two  regiments  of 
cavalry  and  three  battalions  of  infantry  on  the  other,  continued 
alone  to  make  resistance,  and  the  Mexicans,  notwithstanding  their 
losses,  might,  by  a  final  effort,  have  secured  the  victory.  Their 
mounted  men,  bestriding  horses  caparisoned  in  all  that  gorgeous- 
ness  of  colors  which  is  so  attractive  to  southern  people,  and  bran- 
dishing their  lances  with  long  streamers,  were  advancing  in  ser- 

*  Tlie  disparity  was  even  greater.  The  American  army  did  not  number  quite 
five  tliousiind  men. — Ed. 


THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION  IN  3IEXIC0.  45 

ried  columns  and  in  the  best  of  order,  despite  the  roughness  of  the 
ground.  But  as  they  neared  that  portion  of  the  American  line  of 
infantry  which  was  still  making  resistance,  their  motions  were  seen 
to  slacken ;  the  grape-shot  had  begun  to  reach  them.  They  came 
to  a  full  stop,  and  a  few  volleys  of  musketry  sufficed  to  make  them 
wheel  about  in  quick  time.  The  American  mounted  volunteers 
on  their  part,  under  the  command  of  a  rough  but  brave  Kcntuck- 
ian,  Humphrey  Marshall,  behaved  handsomely.  At  first  they 
occupied,  as  sharpshooters  and  on  foot,  a  crest  inaccessible  to 
horses ;  then,  at  the  moment  of  the  great  disorder,  they  fell  back 
gradually  without  allowing  themselves  to  be  broken.  Reduced 
finally  to  four  hundred  men,  they  waited,  without  flinching  and 
in  line  of  battle,  the  attack  of  a  brigade  of  the  enemy,  which  they 
received  at  sixty  paces  with  a  volley  fired  from  their  saddles. 
Then,  seeing  the  Mexicans  waver  and  halt,  they  flung  their  car- 
bines over  their  shoulders,  and  charging  the  enemy  with  their 
sabres,  put  them  to  flight  after  a  bloody  conflict,  in  Avhich  many 
of  their  men,  and  one  of  their  colonels,  were  left  upon  the  ground. 

Disorganized  by  the  very  effort  which  had  seemed  to  render 
success  certain,  the  Mexican  army  gave  up  the  struggle ;  but  it 
was  only  on  the  following  day,  when  they  were  preparing  for  a 
new  effort  to  sustain  the  unequal  contest,  that,  finding  no  longer 
any  enemy  in  front,  the  Americans,  as  it  has  often  happened  to 
them  since,  learned  that  they  had  gained  the  victory. 

Having  failed  on  this  side,  Santa  Anna  unhesitatingly  turned 
towards  Vera  Cruz,  where  his  presence  was  needed,  and  where  we 
shall  again  shortly  find  him.  He  left  the  army  of  occupation  in 
quiet  possession  of  the  country  it  had  conquered,  but  too  far  re- 
mote from  the  new  theatre  of  war  to  exercise  any  influence  over 
tlio  events  of  which  we  have  yet  to  speak. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO. 

ON  the  9th  day  of  March,  1847,  thanks  to  the  skill  of  tlw 
American  navy,  twelve  thousand  men  were  landed  on  the 
beach  of  Vera  Cruz  without  striking  a  blow.  The  operations  of 
this  little  army,  which,  although  never  amounting  to  more  than 
fourteen  thousand  men,  was  nevertheless  able  to  open  for  itself  a 
triumphant  passage  to  the  city  of  Mexico,  deserve  all  our  attention. 
It  passed  through  a  country  which  is  now  familiar  to  those  who 
have  become  interested  in  the  labors  of  our  own  soldiers  in  the 
same  localities ;  and  the  obstacles  which  it  encountered,  the  skilful 
and  successful  manner  in  which  it  Avas  handled,  while  they  earned 
for  it  well-deserved  glory,  also  proved  to  be  the  best  of  schools. 

Santa  Anna  had  preceded  it  to  Vera  Cruz,  his  real  capital, 
which  had  so  often  seen  him  retire  like  a  hermit  to  his  vast  haci- 
enda, or  appear  suddenly  among  the  barracks  to  issue  some  pro- 
nunciamiento.  The  recollection  of  that  night  in  1838,  when  he 
was  surprised  and  wounded  by  a  handful  of  our  bold  sailors,  had 
not  discouraojed  him.  But  while  giving  directions  for  the  defence 
of  the  place  where  he  intended  to  cause  the  success  of  our  arms  to 
be  forgotten,  he  took  care  not  to  shut  himself  up  within  its  walls 
in  the  presence  of  the  Americans.  He  dreaded  with  just  cause 
the  superiority  of  their  discipline,  of  their  military  spirit,  of  their 
maUriel,  and,  above  all,  of  their  perseverance.  In  spite  of  one  of 
those  terrible  northers  so  common  and  so  dangerous  in  the  harbor 
of  Vera  Cruz,  which  interrupted  all  communication  with  the  fleet, 
and  which  by  demolishing  the  hills  of  moving  sand  levelled  the 
first  works  of  the  engineer,  the  siege  progressed  rapidly.  The 
city  surrendered  three  days  after  the  trenches  were  opened,  and 
after  one  day's  bombardment,  which  only  disabled  sixty-four 
Americans. 


THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  47 

But  all  the  advantages  accruing  from  this  rapid  success  were 
lost  in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  of  transportation,  which  is 
the  great  problem  of  war  in  regions  destitute  of  resources,  and 
which  becomes  still  more  difficult  when,  the  base  of  operations 
being  purely  maritime,  the  supplies  are  slow  in  reaching  their  des- 
tination. The  horses  and  draught  mules  had  perished  in  the  gale, 
and  three  weeks  elapsed  before  the  army  could  take  up  its  line  of 
march.  Fortunately  for  it,  the  Mexicans  did  not  know  how  to 
take  advantage  of  this  delay.  If  they  had  confined  themselv^es 
to  the  defence  of  cities  and  forts  like  Puebla  and  Perote,  and  to 
harassing  the  Americans  with  their  numerous  cavalry,  the  latter, 
not  being  then  provided  with  the  means  for  transporting  their 
siege  guns,  would  have  found  a  resistance  in  those  localities  which 
they  could  not  have  overcome.  But  despite  the  teachings  of  the 
Spanish  war,  the  Mexicans  forgot  Saragossa,  to  imitate  Ocana  and 
Rio  Seco.  They  had  not  the  incentives  of  popular  passions  and 
national  hatred  to  lead  them  to  resort  to  that  terrible  street-figlit- 
ing  in  which  the  Spanish  race  excels.  The  Americans  had  avoided 
all  occasions  of  stirring  up  their  animosities,  by  not  meddling 
with  their  intestine  quarrels.  Scott,  who  had  no  more  idea  of 
their  regeneration  than  Santa  Anna  himself,  had  taken  sides  with 
none  of  the  parties  which  divided  them  ;  he  was  most  anxious  not 
to  overthrow  the  government  he  had  come  to  fight ;  for  he  wanted 
to  be  able  to  treat  with  it  on  the  day  after  the  victory.  Besides, 
it  was  not  the  sacrifice  of  some  distant  portions  of  the  territory 
which  could  rouse  a  population  accustomed  to  see  half  these  prov- 
inces in  arms  against  each  other.  Therefore,  during  that  cam- 
paign the  cities  themselves  offered  no  resistance  to  the  little  for- 
eign army.  The  inhabitants,  crowded  upon  the  balconies  to  see 
the  American  soldiers  pass,  wondering  'at  their  haggard  looks, 
their  tattered  garments,  and  disappointed  in  their  expectations  of 
a  brilliant  pageant,  asked  each  other  how  such  men  could  have 
vanquished  the  national  troops,  but  left  to  those  troops  the  care 
of  fio-hting  them. 

Santa  Anna  committed  an  error  of  frequent  occurrence  in  those 
half-civilized  countries,  where  generals  with  scarcely  any  military 
experience  command  troops  tliat  have  but  the  outward  appearance 
of  our  organized  armies.     Always  anxious  to  fight  pitched  battles, 


48  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

they  impose  a  discipline  upon  their  soldiers  which  embarrasses 
without  sustaining  them  ;  they  encumber  themselves  with  materiel 
which  they  know  not  how  to  use,  and  thus  lose  all  their  natural 
advantages.  "When  he  took  up  his  position  at  Cerro  Gordo — a 
position  skilfully  chosen  and  strongly  entrenched,  for  the  purpose 
of  preventing  the  Americans  from  reaching  the  table-lands  by  the 
Jalapa  road — he  sustained,  on  the  18th  of  April,  1847,  a  crushing 
defeat.  Of  his  twelve  thousand  men,  three  thousand  were  taken 
prisoners,  and  the  remainder  took  to  flight,  leaving  behind  them  four 
thousand  muskets  and  forty-three  guns.  He  had  again  committed 
the  mistake  which,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  Mexican  inde- 
pendence, had  proved  so  fatal  to  Hidalgo.  But  at  Cerro  Gordo 
one  did  not  see,  as  at  Calderon  Bridge,  entire  populations  of  In- 
dians almost  unarmed  given  up  to  useless  and  inevitable  slaughter. 
The  courageous  defence  of  the  Mexicans  was,  on  the  contrary,  a 
useful  lesson  to  the  Americans.  In  fact,  Scott  had  charged  the 
enemy  in  front  and  in  flank  at  the  same  time.  The  first  of  these 
two  attacks  cost  the  Americans  dear,  and  was  productive  of  no 
results ;  while  the  other,  boldly  led,  succeeded  in  taking  the  army 
of  Santa  Anna  in  rear  and  throwing  it  into  irretrievable  con- 
fusion. These  flank  movements,  often  tried  afterward,  always 
proved  successful  before  an  enemy  who  weakened  his  wings  for 
the  sake  of  extending  his  lines. 

The  success  of  this  flank  movement  had,  besides,  been  carefully 
planned.  They  had  scarcely  emerged  from  their  open  trenches 
among  the  moving  sands  and  fever-breeding  swamps  which  sur- 
round Vera  Cruz,  when  the  American  soldiers  took  up  once  more 
the  shovel  and  pick,  for  three  days,  to  cut  a  passage  through  a 
rock,  which  allowed  the  artillery  to  take  up  a  position  within 
range  of  the  Mexican  works  at  Cerro  Gordo,  and  to  support  the 
assault  which  carried  them.  It  was  owing  to  this  patient  labor 
that  the  defences  erected  in  front  of  the  enemy's  army  were 
avoided,  and  that,  at  the  critical  moment,  the  latter  found  its  re- 
treat cut  ofP. 

Scott's  troops  showed  their  valor,  not  only  by  resolutely  charg- 
ing positions  bristling  with  guns,  but  especially  in  pursuing  the 
enemy  after  his  defeat  with  a  degree  of  vigor  which  prevented 
him  from  rallying  again.     This  pursuit,  difficult  when  the  ques- 


THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  49 

tion  of  supplies  embarrasses  every  movement,  would  have  been 
impossible  with  new  troops,  who  are  always  exhausted  at  the  end 
of  a  conflict  by  the  very  effort  which  has  secured  the  victory. 

Perote  and  Puebla  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Americans  with- 
out a  struggle.  It  was  very  fortunate  for  them  that  they  had  so 
crippled  the  Mexican  army  that  their  entrance  into  those  towns 
could  not  be  opposed ;  for  their  number  had  been  greatly  reduced, 
and  they  were  beginning  to  experience  those  vexations  which 
render  a  campaign  in  the  New  World  so  troublesome.  A  month 
of  inactivity  in  the  fatal  climate  of  tropical  lands,  followed  by 
long  and  fatiguing  marches,  the  scorching  days  and  cold  nights 
of  the  table-lands,  had  developed  many  diseases  in  that  little 
army,  which  only  numbered  forty-five  hundred  men  when  it 
entered  Puebla.  The  large  train,  from  which  it  could  not  sepa- 
rate itself,  had  been  equally  diminished.  Admirably  adapted  for 
long  expeditions  in  the  vast  prairies  of  the  far  West,  it  was 
poorly  organized  for  the  purpose  of  following  an  army  over  the 
rugged  soil  of  Mexico.  The  wagons  were  too  hea\y,  the 
teams,  already  much  reduced  in  numbers  during  the  sea  voyage, 
were  falling  in  their  traces,  and  the  mules  of  the  country  were 
restive  in  harness.  The  few  remaining  vehicles  were  encumbered 
with  the  sick  that  could  not  be  left  behind.  There  also  occurred 
in  this  army,  composed  as  it  was  of  men  of  such  various  nation- 
alities, too  many  desertions.  Finally,  the  four  thousand  volun- 
teers who  followed  Scott  as  far  as  Jalapa  had  only  a  few  weeks 
longer  to  serve ;  for  at  the  time  of  their  enlistment  they  did  not 
count  on  so  long  a  war.  Although  this  corps  constituted  more 
than  one-third  of  his  army,  the  American  general  would  not  take 
them  along  with  him  in  his  march  upon  Mexico,  as  it  would  have 
rendered  it  impossible  for  tlicm  to  leave  him  when  their  term  of 
enlistment  should  expire.  That  high-toned  commander,  a  scru- 
pulous observer  of  the  requirements  of  law,  like  the  people  whom 
he  represented,  made  it  a  point  to  fulfil  the  obligations  which  the 
State  had  assumed  in  regard  to  them,  and  at  the  end  of  April  he 
sent  them  back  to  Vera  Cruz,  before  the  yellow  fever  scourged 
the  coast. 

The  Federal  government  had  committed  a  grave  error,  and  had 
greatly  deceived  itself  regarding  the  facility  of  reaching  Mexico ; 
Vol.  I.— 4  • 


50  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

for  that  strange  capital  is  surrounded  by  a  kind  of  mirage  which 
dazzles  all  those  whose  cupidity  it  excites.  But  when  free  gov- 
ernments, acting  under  the  influence  of  popular  impressions,  com- 
mit such  errors,  to  which  absolute  powers  are  not  less  liable,  they 
generally  find  in  public  opinion  itself  the  means  of  rectifying 
them.  Congress,  in  fact,  in  its  session  of  1846,  had  failed  to  vote 
the  formation  of  ten  new  regiments  of  regulars  which  had  been 
proposed  at  the  last  moment ;  and  the  President  was  not  author- 
ized to  raise  them  until  the  time  when  tliey  should  already  have 
been  landed  at  Vera  Cruz  to  reinforce  Scott,  who  was  condemned 
to  inactivity  on  the  table-lands  of  Puebla.  But  this  want  of 
foresight  was  soon  followed  by  action.  The  smallest  detach- 
ments of  the  regular  army  were  called  in  from  every  part  of  the 
country  to  constitute  cadres  for  the  new  regiments,  which,  thanks 
to  the  rapidity  of  enlistments,  swelled  to  more  than  ten  thousand 
men  during  the  year ;  and  as  the  question  now  was  to  sustain  the 
national  honor,  the  North  furnished  volunteers  with  as  much 
eagerness  as  the  South. 

Finally,  after  a  tedious  inactivity  of  three  months  and  a  half, 
the  American  army  found  itself  increased  to  the  total  of  four- 
teen thousand  five  hundred  men.  This  was  not  enough,  however, 
to  maintain  communications  with  the  sea  while  the  principal 
column  Avas  marching  upon  Mexico.  Scott  resorted  to  a  bold 
expedient:  all  the  garrisons,  except  those  of  Vera  Cruz  and 
Perote,  were  gathered  together  in  Puebla,  where  six  hundred 
able-bodied  men  and  six  hundred  convalescents  were  shut  up 
with  twenty-five  hundred  sick  confided  to  their  care. 

The  American  general,  having  given  up  his  base  of  operations, 
took  up  his  line  of  march  with  ten  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  men,  and  every  available  means  of  transportation. 
The  total  amount  of  regular  troops  in  this  force  was  eighteen 
regiments,  a  number  altogether  unusual,  some  of  which  had  been 
reduced,  it  is  true,  to  less  than  five  hundred  men  during  the 
campaign ;  they  comprised  twelve  regiments  of  the  line,  one  of 
voltigeurs,  one  of  dismounted  rifles,  and  four  regiments  of  foot 
artillery,  taken  from  the  various  Federal  fortresses,  which  per- 
formed infantry  duty.  Tlie  regulars  formed  three  divisions,  to 
which  was  added  one  division  of  volunteers,  each  comprising  two 


THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  51 

brigades  and  one  regular  field  battery.  The  cavalry,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  difficulty  of  maritime  transportation,  was  reduced 
to  five  hundred  horses,  a  most  insignificant  nunqiber  compared 
with  that  of  the  Mexicans.  The  American  heavy  wagons  hav- 
ing failed  for  the  transportation  of  provisions  and  ammunition,  a 
convoy  of  the  sumpter  animals  of  the  country  was  substituted. 

The  circumstances  which  obliged  the  Americans  to  abandon 
their  communications  with  Puebla  rendered  it  necessary  for  them 
to  keep  their  lines  as  close  during  their  march  as  the  difficulties 
of  the  roads  and  the  necessity  of  collecting  provisions  permitted. 
The  divisions  were  kept  apart  at  intervals  of  three  leagues,  so  as 
to  be  able  mutually  to  support  each  other.  The  park  with  the 
large  impedimenta  followed  first.  The  dragoons,  well  officered, 
scouted  the  roads  sufficiently,  notwithstanding  the  smallness  of 
their  numbers.  It  was  in  this  order  that  the  Americans  crossed 
the  table-lands  and  the  high  chain  of  mountains  which  separate 
Puebla  from  the  interior  basin  of  Mexico.  The  heavy  rains  of 
that  year  had  swelled  the  torrents  and  damaged  all  the  roads. 
The  American  soldier  does  not  possess  the  art  of  procuring  food 
in  a  poor  or  exhausted  country.  The  administrative  department, 
accustomed  to  campaigns  in  which  the  troops  carried  everything 
with  them,  did  not  know  how  to  make  a  country  contribute  to 
the  necessary  wants  of  the  army,  while  lightening  as  much  as 
possible  the  burdens  of  war.  Provisions  were  scarce.  Invisible 
but  stubborn  g-uerillas  surrounded  the  Americans  like  an  elusive 
mist;  and  they  advanced  rapidly  to  escape  from  their  clutches. 
It  was  especially  around  the  large  supply-train,  the  preservation 
of  which  was  a  matter  of  vital  importance,  that  it  became  neces- 
sary to  be  doubly  vigilant.  Consequently,  when  the  mules,  strung 
along  like  a  chaplet  of  beads,  pricked  up  their  ears,  and  shaking 
the  little  bells  attached  to  their  parti-colored  trappings,  entered 
one  of  those  defiles  favorable  to  ambuscades,  the  alarms  were  fre- 
quent ;  the  least  impediment,  the  shouts  of  the  Mexican  arrieros, 
of  doubtful  fidelity,  the  very  echo  of  the  animals'  feet  striking 
against  the  rocks,  seemed  to  the  officers  charged  with  this  heavy 
responsibility  the  signal  of  some  treachery. 

The  Americans,  however,  arrived  without  fight  or  accident  in 
the  valley  of  Mexico,  where  Santa  Anna,  with  an  army  which 


52  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

four  months'  respite  had  enabled  him  to  reorganize,  offered  them 
another  chan«?e  in  the  game  he  had  once  lost  at  Cerro  Gordo — 
double  or  quits.  This  time,  profiting  by  experience,  he  fully  in- 
tended to  take  advantage  of  those  solid  buildings  which  the 
Spaniards  had  scattered  around  Mexico.  The  position  of  Scott's 
army  was  a  difficult  one.  In  sacrificing  his  communications,  he 
'  had  deprived  the  enemy  of  one  of  his  principal  resources — the 
attack  of  isolated  detachments — but  at  the  sight  of  the  prepara- 
tions for  defence  made  by  the  latter,  he  must  have  acknovs^ledged 
that  he  had  not  brought  one  man  too  many  with  him,  in  order  to 
avoid  a  disaster  the  gravity  of  which  no  line  of  posts  established 
en  echelon  on  the  route  could  have  lessened.  His  troops,  full 
of  confidence  in  him,  had  not  been  in  the  least  alarmed  at  a  step 
which  would  have  disconcerted  less  experienced  soldiers. 

It  was  necessary  at  all  hazards  for  them  to  conquer  this  for- 
midable adversary  in  the  positions  he  had  chosen.  They  fortu- 
nately passed  through  this  ordeal  so  trying  to  the  morale  of  the 
soldier,  and  success  justified  the  daring  of  their  chief.  They 
may  probably  have  been  sustained  by  the  example  of  that  adven- 
turous genius  who  was  the  first  to  subjugate  Mexico;  for  the 
Americans,  who  are  far  from  wanting  in  imagination  when 
the  greatness  of  the  nation  is  in  question,  were  no  doubt  incited 
by  the  remembrance  of  Cortes  and  the  hope  of  equalling  his 
exploits. 

Nature  has  done  everything  to  render  the  approaches  to  Mexico 
difficult : — On  one  part,  lakes  and  marshes  intersected  by  narrow 
causeways,  which  the  redoubts  erected  by  Santa  Anna  fully  com- 
manded. On  the  other,  along  the  mountain  sides  which  surround 
this  interior  basin,  a  ground  singularly  uneven,  traversed  by  im- 
mense petrified  streams  of  ancient  lava,  in  which  enormous  blocks 
with  sharp  angles  are  piled  up  in  heaps.  These  streams  of  lava, 
called  pedregales,  were  impracticable  for  cavalry  and  artillery;  the 
infantry  even  could  not  keep  their  ranks ;  and  the  small  but  com- 
pact villages  of  Contreras,  San  Antonio,  and  Churubusco  formed 
a  line  on  that  same  ground  difficult  to  carry.  Nearer  the  capital 
rose  the  rock  of  Chapultepec  (the  "  hill  of  locusts "),  crowned 
with  strong  Spanish  fortifications  of  the  seventeenth  century 
which  command   all   its   approaches.     Finally,   the   city   itself, 


THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  53 

owing  to  an  unusual  rainy  season,  was  then  surrounded  by  ground 
deeply  gullied. 

A  series  of  combats  which  occupied  three  days,  from  the  18  th 
to  the  20th  of  August,  and  which  conjointly  constituted  an  im- 
portant battle,  as  much  on  account  of  the  price  it  cost  as  for  its 
results,  delivered  up  to  the  Americans  the  first  line  of  defences. 

The  decisive  blow  was  delayed  for  two  weeks  by  an  armistice, 
of  which  the  Mexicans  alone  derived  the  benefit.  But  the  two 
bloody  days  of  the  7th  and  13th  of  September  caused  the  fall  of 
Chapultepec,  and  secured  to  the  Americans,  with  that  final  vic- 
tory, possession  of  the  great  city  of  Mexico. 

These  two  operations  deserve  to  be  commented  upon  in  detail, 
for  they  reflected  as  much  honor  upon  the  commander  who  con- 
ducted them  as  upon  the  army  that  executed  them.  The  limits 
of  this  historical  sketch,  however,  do  not  allow  us  to  do  more 
here  than  point  out  the  principal  features  of  the  struggle,  and  the 
military  qualities  to  which  the  Americans  were  indebted  for  their 
success  against  an  enemy  superior  in  numerical  strength  and  mas- 
ter of  strong  defensive  positions. 

They  knew  how  to  work,  march,  and  fight  at  the  same  time. 
"With  pick  in  hand,  they  opened  for  themselves  a  passage  across 
the  peclregal  to  avoid  some  of  the  strongest  positions  of  the  enemy. 
Sometimes  in  his  very  presence,  at  other  times  concealing  their 
movements,  and  often  even  dispensing  with  the  support  of  tlieir 
artillery,  it  was  always  by  some  flanking  manoeuvre  that  they 
prepared  for  their  successes ;  and  if  it  happened  more  than  once 
that  in  the  midst  of  some  movement  executed  under  the  fire  of 
the  enemy,  or  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  their  battalions,  little 
used  to  act  in  concert,  were  thrown  into  confusion,  the  zeal  and 
intelligence  of  the  officers  always  repaired  these  accidents  in  time. 
It  was  by  their  courage,  in  short,  and  their  stubbornness,  that  the 
American  troops  achieved  victory  when  it  became  necessary  to 
attack  positions  in  front  which  could  no  longer  be  turned. 

He  had  hardly  set  foot  upon  the  direct  road  from  Vera  Cruz 
to  Mexico,  which  runs  between  the  lakes  Tezcuco  and  Chalco, 
when  Scott  perceived  that  he  could  not  open  himself  a  passage  on 
that  side.  Renewing  on  a  larger  scale  the  manoeuvre  of  Cerro 
Gordo,  he  determined  to  attempt  an  attack  by  way  of  the  south 


54  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

after  having  turned  Lake  Chalco.  Between  this  lake  and  the 
adjacent  mountains,  it  was  found  necessary  to  cut  a  road  several 
leagues  in  length,  enabling  the  artillery  to  come  within  range  of 
Contreras,  and  securing  at  the  same  time  the  communications  of 
the  army  with  the  depots  that  had  been  left  east  of  Lake  Chalcp. 

This  turning  movement,  thus  commenced  at  the  entrance  into 
the  basin  of  Mexico,  was  continued  until  the  taking  of  the  capi- 
tal. It  always  proved  successful  in  the  face  of  an  enemy  unable 
to  make  any  sudden  movement  without  falling  into  the  greatest 
disorder.  When  arrived  in  front  of  Contreras  and  San  Antonio, 
the  Americans  meet  with  a  more  vigorous  resistance  than  they 
had  anticipated.  Their  first  attack  is  repulsed;  their  artillery, 
too  weak  to  have  any  effect  upon  houses  solidly  roofed,  is 
crushed  by  the  superior  calibre  of  the  Mexican  guns.  They 
at  once  make  a  new  flank  movement.  One  division  proceeds 
under  cover  of  the  night  to  place  itself  in  the  very  rear  of 
the  position  of  Contreras,  and  the  defenders  of  the  place  only 
become  aware  of  this  bold  manoeuvre  when  they  find  them- 
selves attacked  and  surrounded  on  every  side.  This  point  d'oppui 
once  carried,  the  Americans  concentrate  their  efforts  successively 
upon  each  of  the  positions  which  formed  the  too  extended  line  of 
the  enemy.  This  is  entirely  broken,  and  the  Mexicans  only  re- 
tain the  massive  walls  of  the  convent  of  San  Pablo  de  Churu- 
busco,  with  the  adjoining  tSte  de  pont,  which,  being  in  the  rear  of 
that  line,  could  not  be  turned  with  it.  This  time  it  was  found 
necessary  to  attack  the  position  in  front,  which  the  regular  troops 
vigorously  carried,  not  without  sustaining  serious  losses,  thus 
showing  that  if  they  knew  how  to  manoeuvre  under  an  able  com- 
mander, the  latter  could  also  rely  upon  them  at  that  critical  mo- 
ment in  all  battles  when  the  personal  courage  of  the  soldier  de- 
cides the  victory. 

The  successes  which  after  the  expiration  of  the  armistice  opened 
the  gates  of  Mexico  to  the  Americans  were  obtained  in  the  same 
manner.  Always  manoeuvring  by  their  left,  after  having  passed 
from  the  eastern  to  the  southern  part  of  the  city,  they  extended 
their  lines  from  south  to  west,  and  when  they  appeared  before  its 
walls  they  were  exactly  facing  Vera  Cruz.  In  order  to  capture 
the  castle  of  Chapultepec,  they  sought  to  surround  that  formid- 


THE  ARMY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  55 

able  position  by  forcing  the  extremity  of  the  line  of  which  it  waa 
the  key.  But  the  success  of  this  movement  was  purchased  at  a 
great  sacrifice.  At  the  extreme  left,  three  hundred  dragoons, 
under  the  command  of  Major  Sumner,  undergo  the  most  difficult 
ordeal  that  can  be  conceived  for  cavalry,  and  keep  that  of  the 
enemy  in  check  by  remaining  immovable  under  a  murderous  fire. 
In  the  mean  while,  the  regular  foot-soldiers  make  an  assault  upon 
the  works  which  form  the  Mexican  line.  Although  they  suc- 
ceed in  piercing  the  centre,  the  most  important  entrenchments 
which  support  its  two  extremities  resist  all  their  efforts.  A  single 
regiment  loses  eleven  of  its  fourteen  officers  before  Molino  del 
Rey.  But,  as  it  happened  at  Contreras,  this  check  is  soon  turned 
into  a  victory.  Seeing  their  line  broken,  and  perceiving  farther 
off  on  the  plain  Sumner,  who  is  with  his  few  dragoons  and  a  bat- 
tery of  artillery  driving  the  Mexican  lancers  before  him,  the  defend- 
ers of  ]\Iolino  del  Rey  and  of  Casa  de  Mata,  fearing  to  be  hemmed 
in,  abandon  their  positions  in  great  haste.  The  American  army  lost 
in  that  battle  (September  7,  1847)  one-fourth  of  its  effective  force. 

Nevertheless,  on  the  following  day,  they  must  go  to  work  to 
demolish  the  fortifications  evacuated  by  the  enemy,  and  to  erect 
batteries  in  front  of  Chajudtepec :  they  must  place  there  the 
siege-guns  brought  from  Vera  Cruz  or  captured  at  Contreras, 
whose  fire  is  to  batter  down  the  thick  walls  of  the  castle.  De- 
spite the  murderous  fire  of  the  besieged,  all  the  preparatory  works 
are  speedily  completed,  and  Chapultepec  is  bombarded  during  two 
days.  At  last,  on  the  13th  of  September,  the  American  troops 
scale  the  steep  acclivities  and  surmount  the  various  obstacles  of 
every  sort  by  which  the  ancient  residence  of  the  viceroys  of  New 
Spain  is  surrounded.  The  garrison,  which  numbers  among  its 
best  combatants  the  pupils  of  the  military  school,  makes  a  brave 
defence,  but,  exhausted  and  decimated,  it  can  no  longer  resist  the 
concentrated  effort  of  the  Americans,  who  make  themselves  mas- 
ters of  the  whole  castle. 

The  war  was  virtually  ended.  A  clever  feint  which  drew  the 
attention  of  the  Mexicans  to  one  of  the  gates  of  the  capital,  while 
the  army  completed  its  great  flank  movements  at  the  west,  enabled 
the  latter  to  take  possession  of  another  entrance  to  the  city,  and 
thus  spared  its  adversaries  an  effusion  of  blood  thereafter  useless. 


56  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

There  were  very  few  men  on  that  side,  and  not  a  single  gun,  tc 
take  advantage  of  the  obstacles  that  Nature  has  placed  there. 
Only  a  few  muskets  were  fired  to  cover  the  retreat  of  Santa  Anna. 
Notwithstanding  his  defeats,  he  could  go  out  of  the  capital  he  had 
so  ably  defended  with  head  erect,  nor  had  he  yet  given  up  the 
game.  His  sudden  attack  upon  Puebla  is  an  evidence  of  his 
daring  and  of  the  resources  of  his  genius,  and  it  was  only  after 
the  conflict  at  Huamantla  that,  forsaken  by  his  most  trusty  com- 
panions, he  was  compelled  to  submit  to  the  decrees  of  fate. 

In  the  battles  fought  around  the  capital,  the  American  army 
took  thirty-seven  hundred  prisoners,  thirteen  of  whom  were  gen- 
erals and  three  ex-presidents;  and  among  its  trophies  were  found 
seventy-five  cannons.  The  army  itself  lost  in  those  conflicts 
twenty-seven  hundred  and  three  men,  or  the  fourth  part  of  all  its 
effective  force ;  so  that,  notwithstanding  the  genial  climate  of 
those  high  table-lands,  the  sound  constitution  of  the  soldier,  in- 
ured to  military  life,  and  the  precautions  which  saved  them  from 
much  sickness,  their  number  was  reduced  to  about  six  thousand 
men  when  they  occupied  Mexico. 

But  this  small  body  of  troops,  composed  of  the  ^lite  of  the 
American  forces,  had  acquired,  together  with  the  consciousness 
of  its  prowess,  an  experience  in  the  art  of  war  which  proved  ben- 
eficial to  all  the  regular  army,  and  which  was  not  lost  in  the  great 
struggle  of  1861.  It  was  among  the  young  generation  who  learned 
their  trade  so  well  under  Scott,  that  both  Federals  and  Confed- 
erates sought  the  leaders  to  whom  they  confided  the  control  of 
their  respective  armies.  Thus,  to  mention  some  names  we  sliall 
find  again  presently  in  every  page  of  this  narrative,  it  was  at  the 
siege  of  Vera  Cruz  that  Lee,  McClellan,  and  Beauregard,  all 
three  officers  of  engineers,  made  together  their  d&}ut  in  arms. 
Lee,  who,  through  his  ability  as  a  staff*  officer,  soon  afterward 
gained  the  entire  confidence  of  General  Scott,  directed  at  Cerro 
Gordo  and  Contreras  the  construction  of  the  roads  which  secured 
the  victorious  movements  of  the  army.  After  his  name,  which 
was  destined  to  a  much  greater  celebrity,  those  of  Sumner  and  of 
Kearny,  both  serving  in  the  small  corps  of  dragoons  which  had 
such  a  hard  task  to  perform  throughout  that  campaign,  were  the 
most    frequently    mentioned    by   their    commanders.      Sumner, 


THE  AR3IY  OF  INVASION  IN  MEXICO.  57 

formed  to  lead  a  charge  of  cavalry  straight  to  the  point  of  attack, 
courageous,  stubborn,  and  as  inflexible  in  matters  of  discipline  as 
he  was  unsparing  toward  himself,  had  been  surnamed  by  his  sol- 
diers "the  Bull  of  the  Woods."  Always  keeping  clear  of  politics 
and  faithful  to  his  flag,  we  find  him  in  1857  dispersing  the  legis- 
lature of  Kansas  in  the  name  of  the  then  pro-slavery  government 
of  Washington,  with  as  much  ardor  as  he  displayed  in  defending 
the  national  cause  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac  in  1862.  Kearny, 
chivalrously  brave  and  passionately  fond  of  the  military  profes-' 
sion,  always  discontented  with  his  superior  officers,  except  when 
ordered  to  attack  the  enemy,  had  accompanied  our  army  to  Alge- 
ria in  1840,  in  the  Medeah  expedition,  and  had  subsequently  re- 
turned to  Europe  to  follow  that  army  in  the  campaign  of  Italy. 
At  the  battle  of  Contreras,  rushing  with  one  hundred  horse  in 
pursuit  of  the  fleeing  Mexicans,  he  followed  them  as  far  as  the 
gates  of  the  city,  where  he  lost  an  arm.  Of  all  the  officers  of  his 
squadron,  one  only,  not  less  brave  than  himself,  but  more  favored 
by  fortune  than  the  rest — Lieutenant  Ewell — returned  without  a 
wound  ;  and  by  another  strange  fatality,  fifteen  years  later  almost 
to  a  day,  Kearny  and  himself  were  found  each  in  a  command  of  a 
division  in  the  two  contending  armies  on  the  battle-field  of  Chan- 
til  ly,  where  the  former  was  killed  while  vainly  endeavoring  to 
remedy  the  mistakes  of  his  general;  whilst  the  latter,  always 
more  fortunate,  only  lost  a  leg  in  that  bloody  conflict.  In  order 
to  show  how  useful  the  Mexican  campaign  was  in  training  gen- 
erals for  the  civil  war,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  among  those  offi-  , 
cers  who  had  the  honor  of  receiving  special  mention  in  the  des- 
patches of  General  Scott,  sixteen  became  generals  in  the  Federal 
army,  and  fourteen  in  that  of  the  Confederates. 

Tlie  American  army  remained  some  time  longer  in  Mexico ;  it 
even  received  a  reinforcement  of  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  men, 
and  these  reserves,  drilled  and  instructed  under  the  assiduous  care 
of  Scott,  soon  rivalled  in  ardor  and  soldierly  bearing  the  troops 
who  had  passed  through  all  the  trials  of  the  campaign. 

The  conqueror  of  Mexico  was  as  much  admired  as  he  was 
envied.  Some  personages  of  distinction  in  the  country,  already 
in  search  of  a  foreign  monarch,  offered  him  the  imperial  crown 
of  the  Aztecs ;  and  it  is  even  asserted  that  this  idea  was  for  a 


68  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

time  popular  in  Mexico,  where  the  name  of  Scott  represented 
at  once  strength  and  moderation.  But  he  was  not  tlie  man  to 
barter  away  the  title  of  citizen  in  a  free  country  for  the  false 
glitter  of  such  an  offer ;  for  he  well  knew  that  the  satisfaction 
which  an  honest  man  can  find  in  public  life  depends  not  on  the 
greatness  of  his  personal  position,  but  on  the  character  and  ripe 
political  judgment  of  the  people  whose  destinies  he  shares. 

Respected  by  those  he  had  vanquished,  worshipped  by  his  sol- 
diers and  officers,  his  relations  with  the  generals  of  divisions  soon 
became  embittered  by  jealousy.  Politics  interfered ;  he  was  re- 
called, and  had  to  return  to  the  United  States  alone,  in  advance 
of  the  troops  he  had  so  well  commanded.  But  with  a  truly  free 
people  injustice  is  seldom  of  long  duration.  The  Americans,  far 
from  adopting  the  miserable  prejudices  of  those  who  were  then 
in  power,  felt  that  they  had  cause  to  be  proud  of  their  general. 
He  had  infused  new  life  into  the  regular  army ;  he  had  given  it 
traditions,  and,  above  all,  he  had  inspired  it  with  confidence  in 
itself.  Consequently,  knowing  how  to  conquer  love  as  well  as 
to  enforce  obedience,  he  was  regarded  from  that  time  as  the  father 
of  the  family  of  officers  reared  in  his  school. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  AMONG   THE  INDIANS. 

niHE  Mexican  war  was  the  only  brilliant  epoch  in  the  annals 
J-  of  the  American  army  from  its  actual  formation  in  1815 
down  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war  in  1861.  But  the 
remainder  of  that  long  period  was  not  a  time  of  peace  and  rest 
for  it,  inasmuch  as  it  was  occupied  by  incessant  conflicts  with  the 
descendants  of  the  ancient  possessors  of  America. 

"When  this  army  was  charged  with  the  protection  of  the  fron- 
tiers of  the  newly-settled  States,  the  Indians  living  east  of  the 
Mississippi  had  not  yet  been  driven  into  the  far  West,  nor  politi- 
cally absorbed  by  the  white  race.  But  the  latter  was  already 
crowding  upon  them,  stifling  them  within  narrow  limits,  and  in 
proportion  as  its  settlements  extended,  it  successively  despoiled 
them  of  their  domains,  and  removed  them,  partly  with  their  con- 
sent and  partly  by  force,  to  some  district  yet  too  far  distant  to 
excite  the  cupidity  of  the  whites,  where  a  new  place  of  exile  was 
assigned  them  under  the  name  of  Indian  Reservation.  The  abo- 
.riginal  race,  which  often  submitted  to  these  sad  migrations  with 
the  indifference  of  fatalism,  would  also  at  times  resist  the  con- 
querors who  imposed  them  with  all  the  energy  of  despair.  When 
the  struggle  between  the  pioneer  abusing  his  superior  intelligence, 
and  the  savage  trying  to  find  in  the  expedients  of  cunning  some 
help  for  his  weakness,  became  embittered,  the  little  American 
army,  summoned  to  the  assistance  of  the  settlers  or  the  Federal 
agents,  found  itself  engaged  in  a  murderous,  toilsome,  and  obscure 
war.  Sometimes  it  had  to  take  part  in  skirmishes  which  were 
important  only  on  account  of  the  magnitude  of  the  losses  it  sus- 
tained in  them.  Thus,  in  1814,  a  conflict  took  place  on  the  yet 
unfrequented  borders  of  the  Tallapoosa,  in  which  the  American 
cavalry  lost  over  two  hundred  men,  and  the  Creek  tribe,  van- 

59 


60  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

quished  after  a  desperate  struggle,  left  more  than  one  thousand 
warriors  on  the  battle-field. 

The  tribe  which  offered  the  longest  resistance  was  that  of  the 
Seminoles,  once  a  powerful  nation,  always  haughty  and  warlike, 
gradually  driven  by  the  whites  into  the  low  lands  which  form 
the  peninsula  of  Florida,  in  the  south-eastern  portion  of  the 
United  States.  There,  under  a  tropical  sun  and  amidst  impene- 
trable thickets,  two  enemies,  both  alike  invisible  and  unrelenting 
— the  fever  and  the  Indian — awaited  the  American  soldier,  who, 
bending  under  the  weight  of  his  arms  and  his  provisions,  had 
exhausted  all  his  strength  in  contending  against  the  obstackrf  of 
Nature.  The  Florida  war,  often  rekindled  after  deceitful  attempts 
at  pacification,  was  long  and  cruel.  The  Indians,  exasperated  by 
repeated  instances  of  bad  faith  on  the  j)art  of  the  whites,  gave  no 
quarter.  Reduced  in  number  by  the  unequal  contest,  they  sought 
shelter  among  the  inaccessible  recesses  of  the  Everglades — vast 
woody  swamps  where  the  cypress,  the  magnolia,  and  the  palmetto 
preserve  an  eternal  verdure — and  at  the  approach  of  the  whites 
they  would  disappear  with  their  light  canoes  in  a  labyrinth  of 
channels  of  which  they  alone  knew  the  secret.  The  Americans, 
taking:  advantage  of  their  divisions  and  the  exhaustion  of  all 
their  resources,  went  at  last  to  find  them  in  this  last  refuge.  It 
was  a  trying  campaign  for  the  soldier.  Water  and  the  forest 
interposed  a  double  obstacle  to  his  progress.  The  ground  gave 
way  under  his  feet,  and  he  was  alternately  obliged  to  creep  slowly 
across  the  swamps,  or  to  get  into  some  fragile  canoe  and  open 
himself  a  passage  between  the  trees,  each  of  which  might  conceal 
a  foe.  He  had  nothing  to  guide  him  but  the  track  left  on  the 
muddy  bottom  by  the  Indian  in  his  flight  towards  his  secret  place 
of  refuge.  This  refuge  generally  consisted  of  an  elevated  piece 
of  ground  called  a  hummock,  covered  with  thick  vegetation,  in 
the  midst  of  which  the  indigenous  families  were  sheltered  in  a 
rude  village.  This  islet  was  usually  surrounded  by  open  lagoons, 
and  the  moment  the  whites  emerged  from  the  forest  they  were 
exposed  to  a  well-sustained  fire  from  a  concealed  enemy,  who  was 
determined  to  die  ratiier  than  give  up  his  possessions.  Finally, 
however,  tracked  from  islet  to  islet,  abandoned  or  betrayed  by 
thei'^  allies,  deprived  of  arms  and  ammunition,  the  most  deter- 


THE  AMERICAN  AR3IY  AMONG   THE 'INDIANS.        61 

mined  among  the  Seminoles,  after  a  truly  heroic  resistance,  had 
to  submit,  or  were  made  prisoners  by  stratagems  little  creditable 
to  their  conquerors.  Decimated  by  sickness,  hunger,  and,  above 
all,  by  the  fatal  abuse  of  fire-water,  the  sad  remnants  of  this 
proud  race  embarked  for  New  Orleans,  and  thence  proceeded  to 
the  prairies  of  Arkansas,  where  that  civilization  which  they  only 
knew  as  an  inveterate  foe  was  soon  again  to  find  them. 

This  struggle  had  lasted  thirteen  years,  and  although  the  Amer- 
ican army  always  endeavored  to  mitigate  the  evils  of  that  cruel 
policy  of  which  it  was  the  instrument,  the  remembrance  of  the 
valiant  resistance  of  those  poor  savages,  of  the  losses  they  inflicted 
upon  that  army,  and,  above  all,  of  their  miserable  end,  remained 
as  a  gloomy  recollection  among  military  traditions. 

Three  years  later,  when  the  smoke  of  the  log  hut,  that  rustic 
citadel  of  the  frontier  settler,  rising  in  the  place  of  the  camp-fires 
above  the  forests  of  Florida,  had  scarcely  proclaimed  the  return 
of  peace,  a  new  career  was  opened  to  the  Federal  army  on  the  dis- 
tant shores  of  the  Pacific. 

The  annexation  of  Texas  after  an  ephemeral  independence,  that 
of  New  Mexico  and  of  Upper  California,  hastened  by  the  cam- 
paign of  Scott,  which  rendered  that  ingenious  transition  useless, 
were  sanctioned  by  the  treaty  signed  at  Guadalupe  Hidalgo.  Half 
the  continent  was  embraced  within  the  new  frontiers  of  the  Union. 
Mountains  and  deserts,  forests,  rivers,  and  prairies,  all  the  space 
of  land  comprised  between  the  last  settlements  of  the  basin  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  almost  uninhabited  coasts  of  California,  where 
the  gold-fever  was  not  yet  raging,  became  part  of  the  domain  of 
the  American  people.  In  thus  extending  the  boundaries  of  tht 
field  open  to  their  ambitious  activity,  the  latter  pledged  themselves, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  to  conquer  that  territory  in  the  interest 
of  civilization ;  their  little  army,  through  its  intelligence  and  per- 
sevt  ranee,  was  to  be  one  of  the  principal  instruments  in  that  en- 
terprise. Such  conquests  constitute  the  noblest  mission  of  the 
soldier.  Abounding  in  useful  lessons,  thanks  to  the  varied  labors 
and  the  individual  responsibility  they  impose  upon  every  man, 
they  form  an  excellent  school  for  an  army.  Colonization,  which, 
under  the  powerful  influence  of  true  and  rational  liberty,  pro- 
gresses rapidly  in  America,  asks  no  power,  civil  or  military,  to 


62  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

direct  it  or  to  think  for  it.  But  the  squatter,  who  will  not  sepa- 
rate the  rifle  from  the  axe,  sometimes  carries  the  love  of  inde- 
pendence to  excess,  and  in  the  struggle  of  the  new  civilization 
against  Nature  and  against  the  imperfect  society  of  the  Indians, 
the  intervention  of  a  superior  power,  strong  and  impartial,  often 
becomes  necessary.  This  was  the  part  the  American  officers  were 
called  upon  to  play. 

They  alone  represented  the  Federal  government,  which  was  at 
once  the  ruler  and  sole  proprietor  of  those  vast  tracts  of  country ; 
they  entered  into  a  contest  Avith  the  still  virgin  nature,  very  differ- 
ent from  those  conflicts  in  which  they  had  been  engaged  with  the 
Indians,  for  it  had  the  happy  privilege  of  leaving  no  captives  in 
its  train ;  but  the  victory  had  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of 
patient  efforts  that  can  only  be  expected  from  military  devotion. 
Their  splendid  geodetical  labors  were  intermingled  with  some  of 
the  strangest  adventures.  We  have  shown  how  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  among  them,  Colonel  Fremont,  while  simply  en- 
gaged in  exploring  the  Rocky  Mountains,  had  conquered,  on  his 
passage,  a  province  as  large  as  France.  Although  a  quarrel  with 
General  Kearny,  induced  by  party  spirit,  deprived  the  army  of 
his  valuable  services,  his  example  was  followed.  Demarkations 
of  frontier  lines,  hydrographical  surveys  of  coasts  and  rivers,  ge- 
ological inquiries,  researches  in  natural  history,  were  at  once  un- 
dertaken by  those  indefatigable  pioneers  of  science.  Their  re- 
ports, published  by  the  War  Department,  notwithstanding  their 
length,  form  the  most  complete  and  interesting  collection  of  his- 
torical records  of  colonization  in  America.  The  solitary  life  they 
led  induced  many  who  had  not  even  received  an  official  appoint- 
ment to  join  in  these  pursuits.  It  is  true  that  at  times  some  un- 
toward accident  interfered  with  their  peculiar  tastes ;  a  geologist 
would  be  stationed  in  a  plain  where  he  could  not  find  a  single 
stone ;  a  botanist  in  a  sterile  desert ;  but  nearly  all  of  them  found 
some  opportunity  to  help  the  march  of  progress  in  the  study  of 
the  new  countries  which  had  been  acquired. 

They  had,  however,  other  duties  to  perform  besides  these 
peaceful  labors.  The  Indians  of  the  West,  although  not  cor- 
nered, like  the  Seminoles,  and  obliged  to  fight  or  to  surrender, 
did  not  give  way  without  resistance  before  the  never-ebbing  tide 


THE  AMEBICAN  ARMY  AMONG   THE  INDIANS.        63 

of  the  white  race.  The  extent  of  their  territoiy,  wliicli  enabled 
them  to  refuse  or  to  accept  a  combat,  and  ahvays  to  select  the  mo- 
ment and  the  place  favorable  for  the  attack,  rendered  it  much 
more  difficult  to  conquer  them.  By  a  wise  precaution  against 
local  outbreaks,  all  relations  with  the  Indians  were  confided  to 
the  President,  who  styled  himself  their  great  father  at  Washing- 
ton ;  and  the  lands  which  they  occupied,  not  belonging  to  any 
State,  were  under  the  immediate  jurisdiction  of  his  government. 
The  management  of  these  relations  was  divided  among  Indian 
agents  in  the  civil  employ  of  the  government,  who  had  charge  of 
all  fiscal  matters,  the  distribution  of  lands,  and  the  collection  of 
taxes ;  while  the  army,  as  the  guardian  of  public  order,  made  use 
both  of  diplomacy  and  the  force  of  arms  to  maintain  it. 

It  had  a  difficult  part  to  perform,  for  it  Avas  placed  between  the 
new  civilization — represented  by  the  squatter,  who  pretends  to 
exercise  the  right  of  prior  occupancy  over  all  the  lands  where  he 
finds  only  red-skins ;  by  the  dealer  in  ardent  spirits,  who  carries 
his  fatal  poison  to  the  very  wigwam — and  the  Indian  tribe,  which 
requires  vast  uncultivated  spaces  for  its  existence,  and  a  degree  of 
independence  incompatible  with  an  improved  state  of  society. 
Although  the.  Americans  have  been  accused  of  systematically 
destroying  the  Indian  race,  their  army,  on  the  contrary,  has  fre- 
quently assumed  the  defence  of  these  unfortunate  people  against 
the  destructive  contact  with  the  white  man.  It  has  endeavored 
to  smooth  the  way  for  their  adoption  of  civilized  customs,  -with- 
out, however,  seeking  to  perpetuate  the  rude  organization  of  the 
system  of  tribes,  which  it  rather  sought  to  destroy,  as  opposed  to 
every  kind  of  progress,  by  favoring  those  who  renounced  their 
wandering  modes  of  life.  The  Indian  tribe,  in  fact,  resembles 
greatly  the  Arab  tribes,  but  more  particularly  those  tribes — no- 
madic as  in  the  times  of  Abraham — which  inhabit  the  deserts  of 
Africa  and  of  Syria,  than  those  we  have  found  in  the  Tell  of 
Algeria,  possessing  already  a  limited  territory,  portions  of  which 
they  cultivate.  The  latter,  although  they  represent  a  more  ad- 
vanced condition  of  society,  or  rather  on  account  of  that  fact,  are 
much  more  antagonistic  to  modern  civilization ;  their  system,  in 
short,  is  founded  on  a  i-eligion  exclusive  and  political,  and  on  ter- 
ritorial regulations  which  admit  community  cf  property.     The 


64  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

religion  of  the  Indian,  like  that  of  the  Bedouin,  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, so  simple  and  so  vague,  that  it  does  not  repel  as  an  enemy 
the  religion  we  bring  to  him ;  while  the  property  of  both — con- 
sisting only  in  tents,  arms,  and  horses  in  the  New  World,  of  herds 
of  cattle  in  the  Old — is  essentially  individual.  The  tribe-system, 
therefore,  is  only  a  weak  political  tie — a  simple  extension  of  the 
family.  In  their  intercourse  with  these  primitive  people,  the 
Americans  have  always  taken  care  that  their  progress  should  not 
result  in  consolidating  the  organization  of  the  tribes,  but  have 
rather  tried  to  merge  its  elements  into  the  great  modern  society 
which  is  rapidly  spreading  all  over  the  continent.  Therefore, 
under  the  influence  of  the  examples  of  civilization,  a  great  num- 
ber of  Indians  have  abandoned  the  nomadic  ways  of  life,  and, 
casting  aside  the  traditions  of  the  past,  have  ceased  their  hostility 
to  the  whites  when  they  have  become  tillers  of  the  soil.  American 
policy  has  devised  various  means  to  win  their  attachment,  either 
through  interest  or  fear.  After  taxing  them  at  first,  the  Federal 
government  changed  its  mode  of  proceeding,  and  bought  their 
lands,  giving  them  annuities  in  exchange.  It  thus  made  them 
submissive  pensioners,  while  it  narrowed  the  limits  of  the  tribe's 
hunting-grounds,  which  were  a  barrier  against  colonization ;  and 
in  order  that  this  domain  might  not  become,  in  the  hands  of  tho 
tribes,  a  real  collective  property,  it  imposed  upon  them  the  alter- 
native, as  soon  as  the  tide  of  civilization  began  to  approach,  either 
to  emigrate  en  masse,  or  to  divide  their  lands  among  themselves, 
by  securing  a  lot  to  every  Indian  who  desired  to  become  a  tiller 
of  the  soil.  In  thus  destroying  the  social  organization  of  the 
tribes,  the  government,  however,  still  respected  their  political  sys- 
tem, with  a  view  of  imposing  upon  them  a  collective  responsi- 
bility for  all  the  crimes  which  might  be  committed  by  their  mem- 
bers— the  only  effective  guarantee  of  the  police  of  the  desert. 
This  process  of  primitive  justice  was  abandoned  as  soon  as  the 
division  and  individual  cultivation  of  the  lands  had  rendered  the 
change  of  customs  permanent,  and  the  political  system  of  the  tribe 
gradually  gave  place  to  an  ordinary  municipality,  while  its  mem- 
bers became  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

No  prejudice  of  color  interposed  any  obstacle  to  this  work  of 
absorption,  which  is  still  carried  on  to  this  day,  and  the  State  of 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  AMONG   THE  INDIANS.        65 

Kew  York  iiself  has  several  villages  of  civilized  Indians  who, 
although  preserving  the  type  and  the  traditions  of  their  race,  are 
in  every  respect  the  equals  of  the  old  settlers  around  them.  Thirty 
years  ago  a  regiment  of  Federal  cavalry  was  raised  entirely  among 
the  Creeks,  and  Indians  of  pure  blood  have  left  the  West  Point 
Academy  with  the  rank  of  officers  in  the  regular  army.  ]\Iore 
than  this,  in  the  South,  where  they  are  treated  as  the  equals  of 
the  whites,  where  the  Confederate  Congress  admitted  their  dele- 
gates to  its  deliberations,  they  had  become,  in  their  turn,  the 
owners  of  slaves  and  fanatic  partisans  of  the  enslavement  of  the 
black  race. 

The  American  army  had,  therefore,  a  double  task  to  perform. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  had  to  maintain  the  national  authority 
over  the  Indian  tribes,  to  see  that  the  treaties  concluded  with 
them  were  faithfully  executed,  and  to  impress  them  with  the 
wholesome  conviction  that  from  one  end  of  the  continent  to  the 
other  all  the  whites  would  take  up  arms,  if  necessary,  to  avenge 
any  outrage  committed  on  a  single  individual  belonging  to  their 
class ;  and,  in  order  to  accomplish  this,  the  army  had  occasionally 
to  resort  to  force,  and  sometimes  to  negotiations,  in  which  the 
sword  gave  them,  in  the  eyes  of  those  savages,  great  advantages 
over  the  civil  agents.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  frequently 
obliged  to  interfere  against  the  white  adventurers,  either  to  pro- 
tect the  ancient  owners  of  the  soil  from  their  violence,  or  to  restore 
order  in  the  midst  of  a  new  community  where  the  most  antagonis- 
tic elements  were  at  work ;  or,  finally,  to  enforce  respect  for  the 
superior  authority  of  the  Federal  government,  which  was  easily 
disregarded  amid  the  vehement  quarrels  of  those  distant  regions. 

Consequently,  the  army  was  always,  if  not  in  war,  at  least  in 
watchful  anxiety.  Having  to  watch  the  Apaches  and  the  Co- 
manches,  who  infested  the  passes  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  the 
side  of  New  Mexico,  the  Sioux  on  the  Upper  Missouri,  the  Nez 
Percys  and  the  Coeur  d^ Aline — warlike  tribes  from  the  shores  of 
Oregon — it  was  scattered  over  an  immense  territory,  and  had, 
besides,  to  hold  itself  always  in  readiness  to  repel  a  sudden  attack 
or  to  punish  the  first  act  of  hostility  committed  against  any  new  set- 
tlement. This  rough  and  adventurous  life  gave  to  the  American 
officer  the  habit  of  command,  of  responsibility,  and  of  individual 
Vol.  I.— 5 


66  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

enterprise — qualities  which  go  to  form  the  warrior.  Most  of 
them  became  passionately  attached  to  it,  for  the  life  of  the  desert 
has  for  the  soldier,  as  well  as  for  the  traveller,  an  attraction 
which  those  who  have  once  tasted  it  nevei  cease  to  regret. 

The  story  of  Kearny  and  of  Doniphan  has  already  shown  us 
some  of  the  difficulties  that  surround  an  expedition  in  those  dis- 
tant regions.  Those  two  chieftains,  however,  had  a  settled  (s6den- 
taire)  enemy  to  contend  with  in  the  Mexicans,  whose  territory  of- 
fered certain  resources  to  the  invader.  But  these  resources  were 
altogether  lacking-  when  the  Americans  had  to  fight  nomadic  tribes. 
Launching  into  the  wilderness,  the  troops  required  to  be  well 
supplied  with  provisions,  so  as  to  be  able  to  follow  them  a  long 
distance  after  the  first  encounter,  and  also  to  be  sufficiently  strong 
not  to  fear  a  check,  almost  always  irreparable. 

The  supply-train,  that  ball-and-chain  which  every  civilized 
army  has  to  drag  along,  carried  all  that  it  could  need  during  the 
expedition ;  for  among  a  hunting  people  like  the  Indians  there 
could  not  be  found  even  such  feeble  resources  as  our  razzias  pro- 
cured among  the  Arab  shepherds.  The  train  consisted  of  heavy 
emigrant  wagons,  each  carrying  a  load  of  more  than  eight 
hundred  kilogrammes  weight,  and  drawn  by  mules  admirably 
trained.  The  team,  controlled  by  a  single  rein,  obeyed  the 
voice  of  the  teamster.  The  country  is  everywhere  open,  and  the 
ground  sufficiently  even  to  admit  of  the  passage  of  those  heavy 
vehicles.  Among  the  isolated  masses  of  rock  in  tlie  Rocky 
Mountains  there  are  no  abrupt  defiles  to  mark  the  separation 
of  the  watersheds  of  the  two  oceans,  and  it  is  only  at  certain 
points  on  the  Pacific  slope  that  steep  mountains  and  dense  forests 
have  compelled  the  Americans  to  imitate  the  conductns  of  mules 
they  had  seen  in  Mexico,  and  to  substitute  beasts  of  burden  for 
their  wagons. 

The  longer  and  the  more  toilsome  the  expedition,  the  more  it 
became  necessary  to  enlarge  the  train  ;  and  its  very  magnitude,  by 
obstructing  the  march  of  the  soldiers,  multiplied  the  evils  attend- 
ing the  campaign.  Difficulties  of  this  nature  came  near  causing  the 
loss  of  the  largest  body  of  troops  that  ever  ventured  to  cross  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  although  commanded  by  an  experienced  officer 
— Sidney  Johnston,  who  would  undoubtedly  have  played  a  dis- 


THE  A3IERICAN  ARMY  A3I0NG   THE  INDIANS.        67 

tinguished  part  in  the  Confederate  .wmies,  if  he  had  not  met  with 
a  premature  death  at  the  outset  of  the  war  on  the  battle-field  of 
Shiloh.  This  little  army,  sent  by  President  Buchanan  in  1857  to 
reinstate  the  Federal  authority  among  the  Mormons,  which  they 
had  disregarded,  numbered  twenty-five  hundred  combatants ;  but 
being  obliged  to  carry  eighteen  months'  provisions,  it  had  more 
than  four  thousand  wagons  in  its  train.  With  such  a  train  its 
march  was  delayed  by  tlie  least  obstacle.  At  the  crossing  of 
every  deep  river,  all  the  wagons  had  to  be  unloaded  and  set 
afloat,  so  as  to  be  drawn  to  the  opposite  shore  by  ropes ;  then  the 
provisions  had  to  be  carried  by  hand  over  the  bridges  constructed 
for  the  use  of  the  infantry,  like  rafts,  of  trunks  of  trees  tied  to- 
gether. After  a  march  of  two  months,  the  Americans  reached  the 
upper  passes  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  the  middle  of  Novem- 
ber, when  they  were  overtaken  by  an  early  winter.  Hemmed  in 
by  a  snowdrift,  the  animals  perished  of  cold  and  hunger.  Each 
day  lessened  their  number  by  hundreds,  and  the  shivering  sol- 
diers set  fire  to  the  wagons  which  were  abandoned  with  their  pre- 
cious supplies.  For  fifteen  days  this  little  band,  strewing  with 
the  debris  of  its  train  the  frozen  mantle  of  the  desert,  continued 
its  terrible  march  with  more  perseverance  than  prudence.  But  it 
could  only  accomplish  fourteen  leagues,  at  the  end  of  which  it 
had  to  styp  from  exhaustion,  and  was  compelled  to  establish  its 
winter  quarters  in  the  gloomy  region  where  it  found  itself  block- 
aded. The  greatest  part  of  the  provisions  having  been  lost,  all 
had  to  live  upon  mule  flesh.  Finally,  this  last  resource  having 
failed.  Captain  Marcy — who  afterwards  became  a  general  in  the 
Federal  army — undertook  the  perilous  task  of  going  to  solicit  a 
fresh  supply  of  provisions  and  conveyances  among  the  settlements 
of  New  Mexico.  He  lost  nearly  all  his  companions  on  the  route, 
and  only  accomplished  the  mission,  on  the  success  of  which  the 
salvation  of  the  army  depended,  after  unheard-of  sufferings. 
Thanks  to  him,  the  fresh  supplies  arrived  in  time,  and  Johnston 
was  able  to  reach  Great  Salt  Lake  City  in  the  spring. 

When  hostilities  broke  out  with  any  of  the  Indian  tribes,  it 
was  necessary,  in  the  midst  of  these  difficulties,  to  go  in  search 
of  a  vigilant  enemy,  who,  born  in  the  wilderness,  was  not  encum- 
bered with  supply-trains.      Always  on  horseback,  the  Indians 


68  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

were  indebted  to  their  animals  for  that  rapidity  of  movement 
which  constituted  their  strength  in  attack  and  their  safety  in 
flight,  and  which,  even  when  they  had  not  yet  adopted  the  use 
of  the  rifle,  comj)ensated  more  than  once  for  the  inferiority  of 
their  arrows  as  compared  with  the  firearms  of  the  Americans. 
It  was  at  the  moment  when  the  white  race  came  to  dispute  the 
possession  of  the  new  continent,  that  a  just  Providence  placed  in 
their  hands  this  precious  and  powerful  auxiliary.  When  the 
European  landed  in  their  midst,  he  brought  them,  at  the  same 
time,  implacable  and  endless  war,  and  the  means  of  waging  it. 
He  gave  them  the  horse,  without  which  they  could  not  even  have 
lived  in  peace  on  the  plains  to  which  they  were  about  to  be 
driven.  The  horse  became  the  indispensable  companion  of  their 
new  existence.  Living  solely  by  hunting,  they  made  themselves 
absolute  masters  of  the  art  of  surprises  and  ambuscades.  Fear- 
ing neither  to  risk  their  lives  in  the  most  dangerous  enterprises, 
nor  to  seek  refuge  in  flight  when  their  attack  had  failed,  rather 
than  wait  for  an  irreparable  defeat  by  keeping  their  ground,  their 
bands  alternately  increased  and  disappeared  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  like  one  of  those  light  fogs  which  rise  from  the  prairie 
wet  with  dew,  and  which  are  condensed  and  dissolved  by  turns 
under  the  influence  of  an  early  morning  sun. 

It  has  often  happened  to  a  column  to  march  for  we§ks  with- 
out seeing  an  enemy,  who,  however,  has  been  following  it  step 
by  step,  ready  to  spring  upon  it  at  the  least  sign  of  weakness. 
Woe,  then,  to  him  who,  through  an  imprudent  confidence,  strays 
too  far  from  his  comrades !  he  never  again  makes  his  appear- 
ance. After  a  day's  march,  which  the  want  of  water  has  pro- 
longed, when  the  camp-fires,  smouldering  in  their  ashes,  are 
dying  out,  and  silence  and  darkness  prevail  everywhere,  a  strange 
cry  is  sometimes  heard,  which  is  responded  to  by  other  cries  in 
opposite  directions.  While  the  men  are  Avaking  up  and  making 
inquiries,  a  confused  noibC  comes  from  the  corral  where  the  artil- 
lery horses  and  the  train  mules  are  picketed.  Some  Indians,  creep- 
ing in  unnoticed,  have  adroitly  cut  their  fastenings,  and,  taking 
advantage  of  the  confusion  they  have  created,  have  dashed  off"  on 
their  own  horses  to  stampede  the  drove  of  frightened  animals  and 
direct  their  course.     These  rush  off  at  once  like  a  whirlwind,  tram- 


THE  A3IERICAN  ARMY  AMONG   THE  INDIANS.         69 

pling  down  every  obstacle  in  their  way ;  and,  still  guided  by  their 
savage  leaders,  soon  disappear,  leaving  the  whites  stupefied  and 
powerless  as  boatmen  without  oars  on  a  stormy  sea.  The  word 
stampede,  used  to  designate  a  panic  among  horses,  was  applied 
during  the  civil  war  to  those  commotions  which  too  often  led 
undiscijjlined  troops  into  a  disorderly  flight. 

But  these  surprises  were  of  rare  occurrence  with  officers  accus- 
tomed to  the  tactics  of  the  wilderness.  They  opposed  vigilance 
to  cunning,  tenacity  to  agility,  and,  finally,  friendly  Indians  to 
hostile  Indians.  These  native  allies  accompanied  the  column  in 
the  capacity  of  guides,  and  frequently  as  scouts,  fighting  in  a  half- 
civilized  fashion — handling  their  rifles  skilfully,  but  furtively 
taking  off"  the  scalp  of  the  vanquished  when  they  coidd  do  so 
without  being  seen  by  their  allies.  In  short,  while  they  would 
discover,  with  the  instinct  of  a  hunting-dog,  the  coAihe  (hiding- 
place)  where  the  hostile  tribe  had  deposited  their  winter  provis- 
ions, the  American  cavalry  rivalled  them  in  dexterity,  and  suc- 
ceeded at  times,  by  a  bold  stroke,  in  capturing,  in  their  turn, 
droves  of  half-wild  horses  which  the  Indian  chiefs  always  kept  in 
reserve  to  remount  their  warriors.  In  one  of  the  last  expeditions 
that  went  out  before  the  civil  war,  in  1858,  a  party  which  left 
Fort  Vancouver  on  the  Pacific  coast,  after  dispersing  the  Pelouse 
tribe,  captured  their  horses  in  this  manner.  The  Indians,  know- 
ing the  untamable  nature  of  those  animals,  and  full  of  confidence 
in  their  own  skill,  relied  upon  being  able  to  steal  them  again  from 
their  new  masters  by  means  of  a  stampede,  and  to  make  use  of 
them  in  a  few  days  to  resume  hostilities ;  so  that  when,  on  the 
following  day,  surveying  the  American  camp  from  a  distance  with 
a  spy-glass,  taken  from  an  officer  who  had  been  killed  the  pre- 
ceding year,  they  saw  the  ground  covered  with  the  carcases  of 
their  seven  hundred  and  seventy  horses,  they  felt  so  discouraged 
that  they  acknowledged  themselves  conquered.  The  commander 
of  the  expedition,  divining  their  intention,  had  called  a  council 
of  war,  and  the  latter — not  without  much  regret,  for  men  who 
have  lived  long  in  the  desert  cannot  be  cruel  to  animals — had  or- 
dered the  poor  beasts  to  be  shot. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  surprises,  the  Indian  and  the  white 
man  almost  always  ended  by  measuring  strength  in  an  open  and 


70  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

decisive  battle.  For  if  the  former  accepted  war,  it  was  because 
lie  felt  sure  of  victory ;  and  as  soon  as  he  saw  his  stratagems 
baffled  by  his  enemy,  the  same  confidence  impelled  him  to  attempt 
an  attack  by  main  force ;  then,  in  almost  every  instance,  the  cool 
courage  of  the  white  man,  his  discipline,  and  the  superiority  of  his 
arms  made  his  success  certain,  although  he  seldom  obtained  it  until 
after  a  long  and  bloody  struggle. 

The  various  arms  of  the  service  had  each  a  share  in  the  hard- 
ships and  dangers  of  these  incessant  wars;  through  them  they 
preserved  their  activity  and  their  military  traditions,  and  acquired 
a  new  experience. 

The  task  of  the  foot-soldier  was  the  hardest.  The  fine  rivers 
which  furrow  the  prairie  are  separated  by  intervals  of  from  ten  to 
twelve  leagues,  which  had  to  be  travelled  in  a  single  stage,  by 
forcing  a  passage  through  the  tall  grasses,  without  a  tree  to  shelter 
the  soldier  for  an  instant  from  the  burning  heat  of  the  sun,  or  a 
drop  of  water  to  slake  his  thirst.  On  the  morrow,  before  being 
able  to  resume  his  march,  he  had  to  cut  the  necessary  materials  for 
the  construction  of  floating  bridges  along  the  steep  banks  of  the 
river  ;  or,  if  the  expedition  was  lightly  equipped,  to  cross  a  deep 
river  by  riding  double  behind  the  mounted  men.  To  the  burning 
heat  of  a  summer,  which  no  sea-breezes  temper,  were  added  the 
prairie-fire,  the  sudden  storms  of  wind  and  rain  so  terrible  on  the 
Plains,  where  there  is  nothing  to  allay  their  violence ;  then  the 
cold  and  the  snow  followed  in  quick  succession,  bringing  new 
sufferings  to  the  troops  they  overtook,  like  those  of  Johnston. 
Such  a  life  formed  marchers  trained  to  long  stages;  but  cam- 
paigning in  a  desert,  where  they  carried  everything  with  them, 
and  unable  to  separate  themselves  for  more  than  two  or  three  days 
from  their  train,  they  were  accustomed  to  a  certain  abundance  of 
food  and  regular  supplies.  Consequently,  when,  in  1861,  war  was 
to  be  waged  in  a  country  not  altogether  destitute  of  resources,  the 
officers  who  had  been  brought  up  in  that  school  did  not  dream  of 
turning  those  resources  to  account,  so  as  to  render  themselves  inde- 
pendent of  the  supply-trains,  until  Sherman  had  abandoned  this 
system. 

In  regard  to  the  cavalry,  this  Indian  war  was  an  excellent 
preparation  for  the  part  it  was  soon  called  upon  to  play.     These 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  A3I0KG   THE  INDIANS.        71 

American  dragoons,  who  for  so  many  years  had  lived  scattered 
among  the  Indians,  were  not  indeed  elegant  horsemen,  nor  even 
good  mauoeuvrers  on  field  parade,  and  did  not  understand  war 
as  our  soldiers  do,  who,  whether  in  line  or  as  foragers,  only 
depend  upon  the  point  of  their  sabres  or  the  swiftness  of  their 
horses.  But  the  necessities  of  a  special  war  had  taught  them  to 
vindicate  their  name,  by  performing  the  complicated  duties  for 
which,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  first  regiments  of  mounted 
infantry  were  formed.  In  order  to  reach  the  Indians  in  their  last 
retreats,  and  deal  rapid  chastisement  to  the  minor  tribes,  they 
frequently  undertook  short  campaigns  without  taking  any  supply- 
trains  with  them.  Carrying  their  ammunition,  biscuits,  coiFee, 
etc.,  on  their  animals,  they  were  followed  only  by  a  few  led  horses 
laden  with  a  reserve  of  provisions.  The  marches  were  long  and 
the  rations  small.  When  the  enemy  was  at  last  reached,  he  was 
almost  invariably  attacked  with  firearms,  for  he  did  not  allow 
himself  to  come  within  reach  of  sidearms,  any  more  than  the 
wild  bird  allows  himself  to  be  taken  by  the  sportsman  with  the 
hand.  The  use  of  the  rifle,  moreover,  gave  the  Americans  great 
advantage  over  their  adversaries,  who,  for  the  most  part,  had 
nothing  but  bows  and  arrows  or  very  poor  muskets.  They 
omitted  no  opportunity  to  use  that  weapon  ;  and  whether  for  the 
purpose  of  striking  the  enemy  in  his  too  precipitate  flight,  or  to 
keep  him  at  bay,  they  fired  without  leaving  the  saddle,  for  amid 
the  immensity  of  the  prairies  man  does  not  like  to  separate  him- 
self from  his  horse ;  if,  however,  it  became  necessary  to  attack  an 
Indian  camp  or  to  defend  a  corral,  if  the  enemy  occupied  a  posi- 
tion too  difficult  of  access,  the  dragoons,  leaving  their  horses  in 
charge  of  one-fourth  of  their  number,  formed  and  fought  like 
infantry. 

Therefore,  despite  their  awkward  appearance  and  their  long 
legs  dangling  by  the  sides  of  their  little  horses,  despite  their 
large  wooden  stirrups  which  they  had  brought  from  Mexico,  and 
the  weapons  of  every  kind  attached  to  their  saddles,  those  bronze- 
faced  men,  with  their  sky-blue  cloaks  with  fur  collars,  had  the 
easy  and  resolute  air  which  betokens  the  well-trained  soldier. 
From  the  manner  in  which  they  led  their  horses,  it  was  easy  to 
perceive  that  more  than  one  day's  journey  performed  on  foot  by 


72  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  side  of  a  limping  animal  had  taught  them  to  be  mercifid 
Let  us  say  that  they  would  have  proved  themselves  ungrateful 
if  they  had  failed  to  appreciate  the  good  qualities  of  those  faith- 
ful companions  of  their  toils.  All  those  who  have  gone  through 
a  campaign  in  the  New  World  have  often  had  occasion  to  admire 
the  sagacity  of  the  American  horse  and  his  sure  footing  in  the 
middle  of  the  darkest  nights.  Able,  though  small,  io  carry  a 
great  weight ;  gentle  and  intelligent,  enduring  fatigue,  rain,  cold, 
neglect,  and  want  of  food,  he  seemed  in  every  way  adapted  for 
that  rough  life  of  the  prairie  which  man  could  not  face  without 
his  aid.  In  the  evening,  after  a  long  day's  march,  his  only  meai 
would  be  the  wild  plants  of  the  prairie  in  the  midst  of  which  the 
bivouac  had  been  made.  But  in  the  morning,  instead  of  being 
saddled  at  sunrise,  he  was  allowed  to  browse  the  herbage  made 
tender  by  the  heavy  dews  of  the  desert  during  the  first  two  hours 
of  the  day ;  and  for  every  three  days'  march  he  was  generally 
granted  one  of  rest.  In  short,  when,  after  serving  at  this  rate 
for  many  months,  carrying  both  his  master  and  his  baggage,  he 
re-entered  the  rude  stable  of  the  frontier  post,  he  found  means  to 
regain  strength  and  to  forget  his  privations  by  munching  ears  of 
corn,  the  grains  of  which  he  picked  out  for  himself. 

The  artillery  had  also  a  large  share  in  the  common  hardships. 
The  mere  changes  of  garrison  between  the  distant  posts,  the 
defences  of  which  it  had  charge,  were  equivalent  at  times  to  reg- 
ular campaigns.  It,  moreover,  made  part  of  every  important 
expedition,  for  the  sound  of  cannon  reverberating  in  the  wilder- 
ness produces  a  profound  impression  upon  the  Indian.  The 
prairie,  though  passable  for  wagons,  does  not,  however,  much 
resemble  a  turnpike ;  the  long  marches  over  that  rough  ground^ 
the  crossing  of  rivers,  the  necessity  of  cutting  a  passage  with  the 
axe  through  the  forests  that  are  occasionally  met  with,  kept  both 
men  and  teams  constantly  at  work.  Sometimes  they  were  obliged 
to  keep  up  with  the  pace  of  the  cavalry,  for  the  light  expeditions 
undertaken  by  the  latter  were  frequently  accompanied  by  from 
two  to  four  guns.  It  is  true  that  the  artillery  interfered  but  sel- 
dom, and  only  when  the  conflict  was  sufficiently  equal  to  give  it 
time  to  reach  the  field  of  battle,  and  when  it  was  necessary  to 
tlirow  some  shells  into  the  midst  of  the  mounted  Indians,  to  make 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  AMONG   THE  INDIANS.         73 

up  for  the  numerical  inferiority  of  the  whites.  But  while  wait- 
ing for  this  oj)portunity  the  gunners  would  take  up  the  musket 
or  the  carbine,  and,  fighting  either  on  foot  or  on  horseback,  share 
all  the  dangers  of  their  companions.  Finally,  the  artillery  officers 
found  themselves  frequently  invested,  either  by  choice  or  the 
chances  of  seniority,  with  the  command  of  important  expeditious ; 
and  they  gave  ample  proof  of  having  lost  none  of  the  traditions 
of  the  Mexican  war,  where  we  have  seen  them  play  such  a  bril- 
liant part. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  great  scientific  labors  of  the 
officers  of  the  engineer  and  topographical  engineer  corps.  In  the 
war-expeditions  they  occupied  the  post  of  honor,  for  they  per- 
formed the  functions  of  staff-officers  and  had  charge  of  clearing 
the  route  for  the  army,  and  of  directing  its  march. 

The  administrative  branches  of  the  service  had  an  important 
task  to  perform  in  those  campaigns  where  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
pare everything  in  advance  that  the  army  could  require.  The 
reader  will  understand  this  when  he  recalls  the  fact  of  Johnston's 
army  being  followed  by  a  train  of  four  thousand  wagons.  It  is 
not  astonishing,  therefore,  that  when  it  became  necessary  to  pro- 
vide for  a  million  of  volunteers,  there  should  have  been  found 
among  the  various  corps,  quartermasters  and  commissaries  of  sub- 
sistence possessed  of  the  required  experience  for  directing  every 
part  of  such  a  vast  administration. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  active  and  instructive  life  that  the 
news  of  the  disruption  of  the  Union  reached  the  American  array. 
The  perfidious  foresight  of  the  late  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Floyd, 
had  removed  almost  the  whole  of  this  army  far  from  the  States 
which  his  accomplices  in  the  South  were  preparing  to  rise  against 
the  Federal  authority.  The  soldiers  had  been  honored  with  the  be- 
lief that  they  would  remain  faithful  to  their  flag.  Under  a  mul- 
titude of  pretexts  the  Federal  forts  and  arsenals  had  been  dis- 
mantled by  the  very  men  whose  first  duty  was  to  watch  over  the 
general  interests  of  the  nation,  and  the  garrisons  which  had  been 
withdrawn  from  them  long  before,  to  be  scattered  over  Texas, 
found  themselves  under  the  command  of  an  officer,  who  seemed 
to  have  received  no  other  orders  than  to  betray  them. 

But  thus  removed  from  the  haunts  of  civilization,  the  regular 


74  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

officers  hiid  remained  utter  strangers  to  the  turbulent  quarrels 
which  it  engenders,  and  had  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  move- 
ment which  divided  their  country  into  two  hostile  camps.  Con- 
sequently, no  class  of  men  suffered  more  keenly,  when  the  citizens 
armed  themselves  against  each  other,  than  that  military  family 
whose  members  were  united  by  so  many  ties.  All  those  belong- 
ing to  the  North,  notwithstanding  the  great  diversity  of  opinions 
on  the  questions  of  the  day,  prepared  to  respond  to  the  appeal  of 
their  government.  Among  those  who  adhered  to  the  Southern 
States  on  account  of  their  birth  or  connections,  there  were  some 
who,  like  the  veteran  Scott,  remained  faithful  to  their  oath,  be- 
lieving that  the  insurrection,  far  from  releasing  them  from  it, 
obliged  them  to  defend  the  threatened  life  of  their  country.  The 
greatest  portion  of  them,  however,  controlled  by  the  influence  of 
party  spirit  and  imbued  with  the  fatal  doctrine  of  the  absolute 
sovereignty  of  the  States,  which  had  come  to  be  a  kind  of  dogma 
among  them,  abandoned  the  Federal  flag  en  masse  to  go  and  organ- 
ize the  infant  forces  of  the  rebellion.  Many  among  them  did  not 
adopt  this  course,  so  much  at  variance  with  the  common  notions  of 
military  honor,  without  regret.  These  regrets,  well  known  to  their 
old  comrades,  contributed  to  mitigate  the  horrors  of  war,  by  re- 
moving from  it  all  bitterness  and  passion ;  and  their  recollection 
actuated  General  Grant  when,  four  years  later,  he  extended  a 
friendly  hand  to  his  conquered  adversary. 

There  were  some,  however,  who  by  their  conduct  aggravated 
I:he  always  painful  spectacle  of  military  defection.  General 
Twiggs,  who  commanded  the  troops  in  Texas,  was  seen  conniving 
at  the  success  of  the  rebellion  while  still  wearing  the  Federal  uni- 
form, and  delivering  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels  the  depots  of 
provisions  and  ammunition  of  his  own  soldiers,  in  order  to  take 
away  from  the  latter  every  means  of  resistance.  Abandoned  by 
a  portion  of  their  officers,  destitute  of  resources,  finding  only  ene- 
mies among  the  ungrateful  population  they  had  protected  during 
so  many  years,  these  brave  soldiers  Avere  further  obliged  to  resist 
the  flattering  representations  of  those  who  promised  them  a  bril- 
liant future  in  the  ranks  of  the  insurgents.  One  of  their  old 
cliiefs.  Van  Dorn,  had  the  sad  hardihood  to  reappear  among  them, 
to  support  these  propositions  with  the  influence  which  his  rare 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  AMONG  THE  INDIANS.         7o 

military  qualities  had  given  him.  He  made  no  converts ;  and  the 
remnants  of  his  regiment,  obliged  to  enter  into  an  agreement  for 
evacuating  the  place  with  the  enemies  who  surrounded  them  on 
every  side,  returned  to  the  cities  of  the  North,  where  they  met  the 
comrades  so  long  separated  from  them,  who  were  flocking  to  the 
defence  of  the  national  cause. 

New  dangers  had  in  fact  sought  out,  in  the  bosom  of  civiliza- 
tion, these  men  thus  once  more  brought  together  by  the  same  sen- 
timent of  duty.  The  national  cause  needed  all  their  devotion, 
for  the  evil  which  had  sown  such  seeds  of  treason  in  an  army 
must  have  been  deeply  rooted,  and  those  sad  examples  of  desertion 
were  but  a  symptom  of  the  blindness  and  self-deception  which 
precipitated  the  South  into  civil  war. 


BOOK  IL— SECESSION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

SLA  VEB  Y. 


BEFORE  exhibiting  the  American  Republic  divided  into  two 
hostile  factions,  and  describing  the  organization  of  the  forces 
that  were  about  to  fight  on  its  soil  to  secure  the  supremacy  either 
of  the  slave  institutions  of  the  South  or  the  free  society  of  the 
North,  it  is  proper  that  we  should  answer  the  questions  which 
every  reader  must  ask:  How  could  such  a  war  break  out? 
What  radical  causes  could  thus  divide  a  great  nation  throughout 
the  whole  extent  of  her  territory,  disrupt  her  armies,  and  put 
arms  in  the  hands  of  citizens  whom  so  many  ties,  so  many  in- 
terests, and  so  many  common  memories  should  keep  united? 

They  were  brethren;  they  had  lived  together  and  had  been 
reared  in  the  same  school ;  they  resembled  each  other  in  all  the 
prominent  traits  of  their  character ;  they  had  the  same  political 
institutions,  the  same  military  traditions.  Their  leaders  had 
served  under  the  same  flag,  and  had  sat  in  the  same  council- 
chambers. 

There  did  not  exist  any  real  difference  of  origin  between  the 
North  and  the  South.  All  those  that  the  South  alleged  to  exist 
when,  despairing  of  her  ability  to  extort  aid  from  Europe  by 
threatening  to  deprive  her  of  cotton,  she  sought  to  arouse  the 

sympathies  of  the  latter,  were  purely  imaginary.     She  merely 

76 


SLAVERY.  77 

pretended  to  genealogical  affinities  to  serve  her  own  purpose, 
when,  pointing  to  her  old  colony  of  New  Orleans,  she  called  her- 
self half  French  ;  and  when,  turning  to  the  English  aristocracy, 
she  evoked  the  memory  of  the  Cavaliers  driven  out  by  Cromwell, 
in  order  to  array  that  aristocracy  against  the  Yankees,  whom  she 
represented  as  a  gathering  of  Germans  and  Irishmen.  In  point 
of  fact,  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  ruled  equally  in  the  South  and  in 
the  North.  It  rapidly  absorbed  the  races  that  had  preceded  it,  as 
well  as  those  which  supplied  it  with  a  contingent  of  emigrants. 
In  taking  part  in  its  work,  those  races  also  adopted  its  customs 
and  its  character. 

In  the  first  city  of  the  South,  New  Orleans,  there  did  indeed 
exist  a  nucleus  of  population  which  by  its  language  and  associa- 
tions clung  to  the  country  that  had  basely  sold  it.  But  that  islet, 
already  half  submerged  under  the  rising  tide  of  another  race,  did 
not  constitute  a  nationality.  As  to  the  Irish  emigrant,  far  from 
resisting  this  tide,  he  rather  followed  it ;  for  although  differing 
widely  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,  he  goes  in  search  of  a  new  country 
only  where  the  latter  is  already  firmly  established.  He  resembles 
those  plants,  difficult  of  acclimation,  which  only  thrive  upon  a 
soil  already  prepared  by  other  and  more  vigorous  vegetation.  By 
another  contradiction  to  his  primitive  habits,  becoming  in  America 
a  denizen  of  cities  rather  than  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  the  barriers 
which  slavery  had  raised  against  the  settling  of  husbandmen  did 
not  exist  for  him.  Consequently,  the  Irish  element  had  spread 
equally  over  the  South  and  over  the  North.  With  that  pliability 
of  mind  peculiar  to  the  race,  Irishmen  adopted  all  the  prejudices 
of  those  among  whom  they  lived ;  and  when  the  war  broke  out, 
they  were  seen  to  enlist  in  the  cities  of  the  South,  where  they  were 
very  numerous,  with  as  much  eagerness  as  their  brethren  living 
in  the  North  displayed  in  defence  of  the  Federal  flag. 

No  commercial  interest  separated  the  South  from  the  aggregate 
interests  of  the  Northern  States.  Large  rivers  formed  a  single 
basin  of  all  the  centre  of  the  continent,  and  all  its  products  con- 
verged into  the  main  artery  of  the  Mississippi,  of  which  the 
Southern  States  held  the  lower  course.  Exclusively  occupied  with 
the  culture  of  cotton  and  sugar-cane,  they  asked  from  the  West- 


78  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

ern  States  meat  and  flour,  which  they  could  not  produce  in  suffi- 
cient quantities  for  their  own  consumption^  The  North  supplied 
them  with  the  necessary  capital  for  all  their  industrial  enterprises. 
It  is  true  that  the  South  sought  in  these  very  circumstances  a  pre- 
text for  a  new  grief,  by  pretending  to  be  the  victim  of  specula- 
tion on  the  part  of  those  who  brought  her,  together  with  their 
wealth,  the  means  of  fertilizing  her  soil ;  and  when  the  day  of  se- 
cession came,  all  the  debts  contracted  by  the  merchants  and  plant- 
ers of  the  South  toward  Northern  creditors,  amounting,  it  is  said, 
to  one  billion  of  dollars,  were  repudiated,  after  the  Confederate 
government  had  tried  in  vain  to  confiscate  them  to  its  own  benefit. 
But  this  complaint,  which  is  that  of  all  countries  in  arrears  against 
their  more  prosperous  neighbors,  cannot  aifect  any  serious  mind. 
The  complaints  of  Southern  planters  against  the  Northern  States 
in  regard  to  the  protective  tariffs,  which  favored  the  manufactures 
of  the  latter,  Avere  more  plausible ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  they  had 
no  better  foundation.  If  the  commercial  question  had  had  anvthing 
to  do  with  the  political  struggle  which  brought  on  the  civil  war, 
the  Western  States  would  have  had  as  much  cause  as  those  of 
the  South  to  separate  themselves  from  the  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  England,  whose 
foundries  and  mills  dread  English  competition,  and  they  would 
have  joined  the  .South  in  defence  of  the  system  of  free  trade. 
The  landholders  of  the  West,  in  fact,  also  derived  their  wealth 
from  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  products  of  which  were 
yearly  exported  in  increasing  quantities.  In  spite  of  the  scarcity 
of  labor,  the  absence  of  land  taxes,  together  with  the  cheapness 
and  fertility  of  the  land,  afforded  an  outlet  for  their  wheat  to 
all  the  markets  of  the  world.  Commercial  protection,  there- 
fore, which  raised  the  price  of  all  European  commodities  for  the 
benefit  of  their  associates  of  the  North-eastern  States,  was  only 
a  burden  to  them ;  and  if,  while  complaining  of  this  protection, 
they  made  com  mon  cause  with  those  States,  it  is  because  they  fully 
understood  the  sole  motive  of  the  war,  and  did  not  in  any  way 
deceive  themselves  as  to  the  only  social  difference  which  divided 
America  into  two  hostile  factions — North  and  South. 

This  difference  was  not  occasioned  either  by  diversity  of  origin 
or  by  antagonistic  commercial  interests.     It  had  a  much  deeper 


SLAVERY.  79 

foundation.  It  was  a  ditch  dug  between  slavery  and  free  labor, 
which  was  becoming  wider  every  day.  It  was  slavery,  prosperous 
in  one  half  of  the  republic  and  abolished  in  the  other,  which  had 
created  in  it  two  hostile  communities.  It  had  greatly  modified 
the  customs  of  the  one  where  it  was  in  the  ascendant,  while 
leaving  the  outward  forms  of  government  intact.  It  was,  indeed, 
not  the  pretext  nor  the  occasion,  but  the  sole  cause  of  that  antag- 
onism, the  inevitable  consequence  of  which  was  the  civil  war^ 

Therefore,  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  differences  of  character 
which  the  war  revealed  between  the  combatants,  we  must  show 
the  constant  and  fatal  influence  which  the  servile  institution  ex- 
ercised over  the  habits,  the  ideas,  and  the  tastes  of  those  who 
lived  in  contact  with  it.  Proteus-like,  the  question  of  slavery 
assumes  every  variety  of  form ;  it  insinuates  itself  everywhere, 
and  always  reappears  most  formidable  where  one  least  expects  to 
encounter  it.  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  sub- 
ject, our  people,  who  fortunately  have  not  had  to  wrestle  with  it, 
are  not  a^vare  how  much  this  subtle  poison  instils  itself  into  the 
very  marrow  of  society.  It  was,  in  fact,  in  the  name  of  the  rights 
of  the  oppressed  race  that  tliey  condemned  slavery.  It  Avas  the 
sentiment  of  justice  in  behalf  of  this  race  which  inspired  religious 
England  when,  in  response  to  the  appeals  of  Buxton  and  Wilber- 
force,  she  proclaimed  emancipation  ;  and  which  actuated  our  great 
National  Assembly  when  it  abolished  slavery  for  the  first  time  in 
our  colonies,  and  those  who  again  prepared  for  its  suppression 
after  the  extraordinary  act  by  which  the  First  Consul  re-estab- 
lished it  upon  French  soil.  It  was  the  picture  of  the  unmerited 
sufferings  of  our  fellow-beings  which  stirred  up  the  whole  of 
Europe  at  the  perusal  of  that  romance,  so  simple  and  yet  so  elo- 
quent, called  Uncle  Torn's  Cabin. 

But  the  effects  of  the  servile  institution  upon  the  dominant 
race  present  a  spectacle  not  less  sad  and  instructive  to  the  histo- 
rian and  philosopher;  for  a  fatal  demoralization  is  the  just  pun- 
ishment that  slavery  inflicts  upon  those  who  expect  to  find  nothing 
in  it  but  profit  and  power. 

In  order  to  demonstrate  more  clearly  to  what  extent  this  de- 
moralization is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  slavery,  and  how, 
by  an  inexorable  logic,  the  simple  fact  of  the  enslavement  of  the 


80  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

black  corrupts,  among  the  whites,  the  ideas  and  morals  which  are 
the  verj  foundation  of  society,  we  will  pass  over  the  long  mar- 
tyrdom of  bad  treatment  daily  inflicted  by  brutal  masters  upon 
their  slaves.  It  is  among  those  who  before  the  war  were  called 
good  slave-owners  that  we  must  inquire  into  the  pretended  moral 
perfection  of  slavery,  in  order  to  understand  all  its  flagrant  im- 
morality. This  slave-owner  possesses  the  same  principles  as  our- 
selves, but  he  is  obliged  to  obey  the  laws  of  necessity.  He 
knows  what  protection  and  respect  are  due  to  the  family  tie ;  but 
as  the  negro  population  in  the  United  States,  employed  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  cotton  and  sugar,  does  not  multiply  fast  enough 
to  supply  the  exigencies  of  this  kind  of  labor,  he  goes  into  the 
markets  of  Virginia  to  procure  a  contingent  of  young  laborers. 
After  having  thus  torn  them  from  their  relatives,  their  affections, 
and  the  land  of  their  birth,  he  will  certainly  not  break  up  the 
new  ties  that  are  forming  under  his  own  eyes ;  but  this  is  owing 
to  the  fact  that,  as  an  economical  manager,  he  finds  in  their  fecun- 
dity a  direct  source  of  revenue.  He  does  not  desire  to  humiliate, 
to  cause  suffering  by  unnecessary  castigations,  but  the  negro  who 
fails  to  perform  his  duties  must  be  punished,  and  these  duties 
are  obedience  and  labor.  The  negro  must  forget  that  he  is  a  man 
— to  remember  only  that  he  is  a  slave,  and  to  work  without  choice 
of  occupation,  without  remuneration,  without  hope  of  a  better 
future.  In  short,  his  owner  will  take  care  of  him,  will  not  im- 
pose any  labor  above  his  strength,  and  will  administer  to  his  ma- 
terial wants  in  a  satisfactory  manner,  precisely  as  he  will  do  for 
the  animals  that  are  working  by  his  side  under  one  common  lash. 
But,  in  order  that  he  may  enjoy  this  pretended  good  fortune,  he 
has  to  be  reduced  to  the  moral  level  of  his  fellow-slaves,  and  have 
the  light  of  intelligence  within  him  extinguished  for  ever ;  for  if 
he  carries  that  divine  spark  in  his  bosom,  he  will  be  unhappy,  for 
he  will  feel  that  he  is  a  slave.  And  when  the  good  master,  sat- 
isfied with  his  own  virtues,  points  to  his  slaves,  saying,  "  They 
are  happy ;  they  have  no  care  for  the  morrow ;  they  are  lodged, 
fed,  and  clothed,  and  would  not  accept  their  freedom,"  it  is  the 
bitterest  of  self-accusations,  for  it  is  the  same  as  if  he  said,  "  I 
nave  so  completely  stifled  in  them  every  feeling  that  God  has  im- 
planted in  the  heart  of  man,  that  the  word  freedom,  which  we 


SLAVERY.  81 

might  hear  pronounced  by  every  creature  that  has  breath,  if  we 
understood  all  the  languages  of  Nature,  has  no  longer  any  mean- 
ing for  them."  It  might  so  happen,  in  extreme  cases,  that  even 
in  the  midst  of  his  surroundings,  his  conscience  rebels  against  this 
degradation  of  his  fellow-beings,  but  then  he  will  blame  the  cus- 
toms which  sanction  this  systematic  degradation,  and  the  severe 
and  peculiar  laws,  enacted  in  almost  all  the  Southern  States,  which 
render  it  nearly  impossible  for  him  to  grant  individual  emanci- 
pation, and  which  even  subject  him  to  severe  penalties  if  he  should 
teach  his  own  negroes  to  read  and  write.  Shall  he  protest  against 
this  hateful  law  which  confines  the  intelligence  of*  the  slave  within 
the  narrow  dungeon  of  perpetual  ignorance?  He  cannot  do  so, 
because  the  moral  degradation  of  the  latter  is  the  only  guarantee 
for  his  physical  submission :  if  he  were  to  witness  too  frequently 
the  liberation  of  his  fellow-beings  from  bondage  as  an  act  of 
favor,  he  would  wish  for  it  in  his  turn ;  and  if  he  received  the 
least  education,  he  would  rise  in  his  own  estimation,  the  abyss 
which  separates  him  from  his  master  would  appear  less  difficult 
to  cross,  and  he  would  emerge  satisfied  from  the  brutal  condition 
in  which  it  is  necessary  to  keep  him  in  order  to  make  him  the 
docile  instrument  of  a  lucrative  traffic. 

But,  again,  the  servile  institution,  in  violating  the  supreme 
law  of  liumanity,  which  links  indissolubly  together  those  two 
words,  labor  and  progress,  and  in  making  labor  itself  a  means 
for  brutalizing  man,  not  only  degraded  the  slave,  but  it  also 
engendered  depravity  in  the  master ;  for  the  despotism  of  a  whole 
race,  like  the  absolute  power  of  a  single  individual,  or  an  oligar- 
chy, always  ends  by  disturbing  the  reason  and  the  moral  sense  of 
those  who  have  once  inhaled  its  intoxicating  fragrance.  Nothing 
was  more  calculated  to  develop  this  kind  of  depravity  than  the 
high  qualities,  and  the  virtues  even,  which  existed  in  the  community 
founded  upon  such  a  despotism.  It  is  precisely  because  that  com- 
munity was  enlightened  and  religious,  because  it  had  produced 
men,  in  every  other  respect,  of  irreproachable  character,  because 
it  had  given  birth  to  heroic  soldiers  who  had  followed  a  Lee  and 
a  Jackson  to  the  battle-field,  that  it  was  the  more  revolting  to  see 
slavery,  with  its  odious  consequences,  prosper  in  its  midst.  That 
this  community  should  have  exhibited  such  a  shocking  contrast 

Vol.  I.— 6 


82  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

to  the  world  without  being  itself  conscious  of  the  fact,  the  moral 
sense  must  have  been  perverted  in  the  child,  surrounded  from  its 
birth  by  flattering  slaves;  in  the  man,  absolute  master  of  the 
labor  of  his  fellow-beings ;  in  the  woman,  accustomed  to  relieve 
the  distress  around  her,  in  obedience,  not  to  the  dictates  of  duty, 
but  to  a  mere  instinct  of  humanity  and  pity ;  in  everybody,  in 
short,  through  the  exaggerations  of  declamatory  appeals  intended 
to  stifle  the  voice  of  upright  consciences.  What  a  deeply  sorrow- 
ful spectacle  for  any  one  who  wishes  to  study  human  nature  to 
see  every  sense  of  righteousness  and  equity  so  far  perverted  in  a 
whole  populatioh  by  the  force  of  habit,  that  the  greatest  portion 
of  the  ministers  of  all  denominations  were  not  ashamed  to  sully 
Christianity  by  a  cowardly  approval  of  slavery;  and  men  who 
bought  and  sold  their  fellow-beings  took  up  arms  for  the  express 
purpose  of  defending  this  odious  privilege,  in  the  name  of  liberty 
and  property  !* 

This  falsehood  having  become  the  basis  of  society,  its  influence 
increased  and  gathered  strength  from  prosperity.  The  founders 
of  the  American  nation  regarded  slavery  as  a  social  sore,  and  trust- 
ed to  the  enlightenment  and  patriotism  of  their  successors  to  heal 
it;  but  as  this  institution  was  productive  of  considerable  profit, 
it  was  soon  viewed  in  a  different  light.  The  Middle  States  (Vir- 
ginia, North  Carolina,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee)  were  ready  to 
abolish  it,  in  imitation  of  their  neighbors  of  the  North,  when  the 
suppression  of  the  slave  trade  gave  a  new  impulse  to  slave  pro- 
duction among  them,  by  protecting  it  against  the  competition 
pf  negro-traders,  who  formerly  brought  cargoes  of  slaves  from 
Guinea  under  the  name  of  ebony.  They  soon  developed  this 
new  branch  of  industry;  and  the  planters  of  the  South,  being 
always  able  to  procure  fresh  and  hardy  laborers  in  their  own 
markets,  found  it  economical  to  spare  their  slaves  no  longer,  but 
to  subject  them  to  excessive  labor  which  wore  them  out  in  a  few 
years.  This  abundance  of  hands  giving  an  extraordinary  im- 
pulse to  the  cultivation  of  the  sugar-cane  and  the  cotton-plant, 
slavery,  which  the  authors  of  the  American  Constitution  had  not 
even  dared  to  mention  by  name,  was  thenceforth  honored,  recog- 
nized, and  considered  as  the  corner-stone  of  the  social  edifice. 
*  See  in  the  Appendix  to  this  volume,  Note  B. 


S1.AVERY.  83 

But  the  uph3lders  of  slavery  did  not  stop  here;  after  having 
declared  it  to  be  profitable  and  necessary,  they  proceeded  to  pro- 
claim its  moral  excellence.  A  new  school,  of  which  Calhoun  was 
the  principal  apostle,  the  teachings  of  Avhich  were  accepted  by  all 
the  statesmen  of  the  South,  assumed  the  mission  of  holding  up  the 
social  system  founded  upon  slavery  as  the  highest  state  of  perfec- 
tion that  modern  civilization  had  reached.  It  was  to  this  system 
that  America  was  destined  to  belong,  and  its  adherents  anticipated 
for  it  the  empire  of  the  world.  There  was  a  time  when  these 
frightful  dreams  cast  a  sinister  light  upon  the  future  of  the  new 
continent,  for  it  seemed  as  if  their  realization  was  within  the 
scope  of  possibility. 

In  fact,  the  slave-power  could  only  exist  by  enlarging  its  do- 
main and  absorbing  everything  around  it.  Reckless  and  violent 
in  its  modes  of  proceeding,  compelling  the  Union  to  become  the 
docile  instrument  of  its  policy,  it  had  conquered  immense  terri- 
tories in  the  interest  of  servitude,  sometimes  in  the  wilderness, 
more  frequently  in  Mexico  or  among  the  Northern  settlements, 
and  it  already  extended  its  hand  towards  Cuba  and  the  isthmus 
of  Nicaragua — positions  selected  with  the  instinct  of  control.  If 
the  North  had  carried  patience  and  forbearance  much  further,  the 
day  when  the  decisive  crisis  arrived,  this  power  might  possibly 
have  been  able  to  impose  its  fatal  yoke  upon  all  America. 

In  proportion  as  slavery  thus  increased  in  prosperity  and  power, 
its  influence  became  more  and  more  preponderant  in  the  commu- 
nity which  had  adopted  it.  Like  a  parasitical  plant  which,  draw- 
ing to  itself  all  the  sap  of  the  most  vigorous  tree,  covers  it  grad- 
ually with  a  foreign  verdure  and  poisonous  fruits,  so  slavery  was 
impairing  the  morals  of  the  South,  and  the  spirit  of  her  institu- 
tions. The  forms  of  liberty  existed,  the  press  seemed  to  be  free, 
the  deliberations  of  legislative  bodies  were  tumultuous,  and  every 
man  boasted  of  his  independence.  But  the  spirit  of  true  liberty, 
tolerance  towards  the  minority,  and  respect  for  individual  opin- 
ion, had  departed,  and  those  deceitful  appearances  concealed  the 
despotism  of  an  inexorable  master,  slavery — a  master  before 
whom  the  most  powerful  of  slaveholders  was  himself  but  a  slave, 
as  abject  as  the  meanest  of  his  laborers.  No  one  had  a  right  to 
question  its  legitimacy,  and  like  the  Eumenides,  which  the  ancients 


84  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

feared  to  offend  by  naming  them^  so  wherever  the  slave  power 
was  in  the  ascendant,  people  did  not  even  dare  to'  mention  its 
name,  for  fear  of  touching  upon  too  dangerous  a  subject.  It  was 
on  this  condition  only  that  such  an  institution  could  maintain  it- 
self in  a  prosperous  and  intelligent  community.  It  would  have 
perished  on  the  very  day  when  the  people  should  be  at  liberty  to 
discuss  it.  Therefore,  notwithstanding  their  boasted  love  of  free- 
dom, the  people  of  the  South  did  not  hesitate  to  commit  any  vio- 
lence in  order  to  crush  out,  in  its  incipiency,  any  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss the  subject.  Any  one  who  had  ventured  to  cast  the  slightest 
reflection  upon  the  slavery  system  could  not  have  continued  to 
live  in  the  South ;  it  was  sufficient  to  point  the  finger  at  any 
stranger  and  call  him  an  abolitionist  to  consign  him  at  once  to 
the  fury  of  the  populace.  One  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  Mr.  Sumner,  who  had  pleaded  in  behalf  of  emancipation 
with  equal  courage  and  eloquence  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  was 
struck  down  with  a  loaded  cane  in  the  very  midst  of  that  assem- 
bly,* by  one  of  his  Southern  colleagues,  and  left  half  dead ;  and 
not  only  did  this  crime  go  unpunished,  the  tribunals  of  Washing- 
ton being  then  occupied  by  slaveholders,  but  the  assassin  received 
a  cane  of  honor  from  the  ladies  of  the  South  as  a  reward  for  his 
exploit.  In  short,  the  mere  fact  that  a  simple  Kansas  farmer 
named  John  Brown,  who  had  been  ruined  and  persecuted  by  the 
slaveholders,  sought  to  wreak  his  revenge  upon  them  in  Virginia, 
and  had  gathered  together  a  dozen  of  fugitive  slaves  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  was  sufficient  to  arouse  a  terrible  sensation  in  the  South. 
It  was  thought  that  a  civil  war  had  broken  out,  preparations 
were  made  for  a  great  uprising,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to 
send  regular  troops  from  Washington  to  seize  this  man,  who  ex- 
piated upon  the  gallows  the  crime  of  having  frightened  the  proud 
Virginians. 

It  was  not  enough,  however,  thus  to  protect  slavery  on  its  own 
domain ;  the  acknowledgment  of  its  supremacy  had  to  be  enforced 
in  all  the  neighboring  States  in  order  to  protect  it  from  all  out- 
ward attacks.  The  North,  through  an  imprudent  exercise  of  the 
spirit  of  conciliation,  had  allowed  the  Constitution  to  be  violated 

*  The  act  was  perpetrated  in  the  Senate  chamber,  where  Mr.  Sumner  was 
seated  at  his  desk,  but  the  Senate  was  not  in  session  at  the  time. — Ed. 


SLAVERY.  85 

by  shameful  compromises.  The  barriers  of  the  free  States  had 
been  lowered  that  the  fugitive  slave  might  be  restored  to  the 
planter.  The  national  policy  was  entirely  subservient  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  slave-power.  Its  demands,  in  short,  became  the 
more  pressing  and  excessive  that  it  felt  itself  on  the  point  of 
losing  the  control  of  that  policy.  It  could  permit  neither  the  ter- 
ritorial extension  of  the  North  nor  the  criticisms  of  a  free  press 
beyond  its  boundaries.  Therefore,  it  was  fully  determined  not  to 
give  up  its  supremacy  in  the  councils  of  the  Union  without  a 
struggle.  Its  newspapers  and  orators  inflamed  the  public  mind, 
and  prepared  it  for  the  coming  conflict;  prophetic  romances,  so- 
called,  shadowed  forth  the  triumphs  it  would  achieve ;  and,  at  the 
first  appeal  of  the  secession  leaders,  the  whole  Southern  commu- 
nity, seized  with  a  raging  fever,  severed  without  the  least  regret 
all  the  ties  which  the  day  before  had  bound  it  to  those  whom  it 
thought  to  insult  by  styling  them  abolitionists. 

The  diflerences  which  slavery  had  engendered  between  the  South 
and  the  North  were  not  confined  to  this  political  antagonism; 
they  affected  the  very  constitution  of  society.  Under  its  influence 
there  had  sprung  up  in  the  South  classes  more  and  more  widely 
separated  from  each  other — a  division  which  greatly  facilitated  at 
first  its  military  organization. 

Work,  being  considered  an  act  of  servitude,  could  not  be  resorted 
to  without  disgrace.  This  rule,  enforced  by  public  opinion,  kept 
Dut  of  the  Southern  territories  that  immense  tide  of  emigrants 
from  Europe  and  the  Eastern  States  which  spreads  over  the  vast 
prairies  of  the  West,  to  form  a  population  of  landholders  work- 
ing their  own  fa'rms — a  population  whose  industry,  energy,  and 
intelligence  constitute  the  strength  and  respectability  of  the  free- 
soil  States.  The  whole  system  of  Southern  agriculture  had  been 
affected  by  this  exclusion,  and  America  thus  presented  in  its  two 
sections  a  nearly  exact  picture  of  the  Latin  territory  at  the  two 
extreme  epochs  of  Roman  history ;  at  the  North,  the  land  par- 
celled out,  cultivated  by  the  citizen  himself,  who  was  at  once  pro- 
prietor, husbandman,  and  soldier  in  case  of  need ;  at  the  South, 
the  latifundia,  or  large  domains,  peopled  by  slaves  and  divided 
among  a  few  masters. 

The  social  system  of  the  South  was  founded  upon  large  do- 


86  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

mains,  the  inconveniences  of  which  are  especially  felt  in  a  region 
of  country  yet  half  wild,  but  which  were  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  servile  institution.  It  alone,  in  fact,  admitted  of  turning  to 
advantage  the  expensive,  insufficient,  and  uncertain  labor  of  the 
slave. 

This  labor  is  costly,  for  the  profits  accruing  from  it  must  not 
only  cover  the  maintenance  of  the  slave  during  his  lifetime,  but 
also  the  interest  on,  and  the  redemption  in  a  few  years  of,  the 
capital  invested  in  his  purchase ;  and  the  amount  of  these  costs 
being  always  in  excess  of  the  yearly  wages  paid  to  the  best  white 
laborer,  the  employment  of  free  labor  is,  all  things  considered,  the 
most  economical. 

It  is  insufficient,  because,  the  intelligence  of  the  slave  being  sys- 
tematically suppressed,  his  work  is  always  clumsy,  and  the  same 
care  cannot  be  expected  from  him  as  from  the  laborer  who  is  mas- 
ter of  himself. 

It  is  uncertain,  because  the  harvest  season  requires  a  great  num- 
ber of  hands  which  the  proprietor  is  unable  to  hire  in  a  free  mar- 
ket ;  and  he  is  therefore  obliged  to  maintain  upon  his  plantation 
throughout  the  year  the  number  of  slaves  he  may  then  require, 
without  being  able,  by  any  amount  of  foresight,  to  make  an  exact 
calculation  in  advance ;  having,  moreover,  to  take  all  the  chances 
of  sickness  and  stoppage  of  work,  among  his  best  laborers. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  cultivation  of  the  land  could  only 
be  undertaken  on  a  large  scale  and  with  considerable  capital.  On 
the  large  plantations,  the  absence  of  those  resources  affi^rded  by 
free  competition  could  be  supplied  by  having  special  slaves  taught 
different  trades,  and  the  variety  of  labor  required  by  such  opera- 
tions always  admitted  of  the  employment  of  a  large  portion  of 
the  slaves — sometimes  upon  one  kind  of  work,  sometimes  upon 
another ;  in  short,  the  capital  invested  was  divided  among  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  negroes  to  enable  the  proprietor,  by  means  of  a 
sinking  fund  and  an  insurance  system  well  managed,  to  meet  the 
accidents  which  are  the  ruin  of  small  slaveholders. 

Owing  to  this  peculiar  condition  of  landed  property,  the  South- 
ern States  were  almost  exclusively  occupied  by  three  classes. 

At  the  foot  of  the  social  ladder  was  the  negro,  bowed  down 
upon  the  soil  he  alone  had  to  cultivate,  forming  a  population  of 


SLAVERY.  87 

about  four  million  souls — that  is  to  say,  one-third  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  South. 

At  the  top,  the  masters,  too  numerous  to  constitute  an  aristoc- 
racy, yet  forming,  nevertheless,  a  real  caste.  They  owned  the 
land  and  the  slaves  who  cultivated  it ;  and  each  of  them  living 
in  the  midst  of  an  entirely  servile  population  whose  labor  was 
under  their  control,  they  disdained  every  other  kind  of  occupa- 
tion. Consequently,  being  more  intelligent  than  educated,  brave 
but  irascible,  proud  but  overbearing,  eloquent  but  intolerant, 
they  devoted  themselves  to  public  affairs — the  exclusive  direc- 
tion of  which  belonged  to  them — with  all  the  ardor  of  their 
temperament. 

The  third  class — that  of  poor  whites,  the  most  important  on 
account  of  its  numbers — occupied  a  position  below  the  second, 
and  far  above  the  first,  without,  however,  forming  an  intermediate 
link  between  them,  for  it  was  deeply  imbued  with  all  the  preju- 
dices of  color.  This  was  the  plebs  romana,  the  crowds  of  clients 
who  parade  with  ostentation  the  title  of  citizen,  and  only  exercise 
its  privileges  in  blind  subserviency  to  the  great  slaveholders,  who 
M'ere  the  real  masters  of  the  country.  If  slavery  had  not  existed 
in  their  midst,  they  would  have  been  tillers  of  the  soil,  and 
might  have  become  farmers  and  small  pro])rietors.  But  the  more 
their  poverty  draws  them  nearer  to  the  inferior  class  of  slaves, 
the  more  anxious  are  they  to  keep  apart  from  them,  and  they 
S|)urn  field-labor  in  order  to  set  off  more  ostentatiously  their  qual- 
ity of  free  men.  This  unclassified  population,  wretched  and  rest- 
less, supplied  Southern  policy  with  the  fighting  vanguard  which 
preceded  the  planter's  invasion  of  the  West  with  his  slaves.  At 
the  beffinnino;  of  the  war  the  North  believed  that  this  class  would 
join  her  in  condemnation  of  the  servile  institution,  whose  ruinous 
competition  it  ought  to  have  detested.  But  the  North  was  mis- 
taken in  thinking  that  reason  would  overcome  its  prejudices.  It 
showed,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  was  ardently  devoted  to  the 
maintenance  of  slavery.  Its  pride  was  even  more  at  stake  than 
that  of  the  great  slaveholders ;  for,  while  the  latter  were  always 
sure  of  remaining  in  a  position  far  above  the  freed  negroes,  the 
former  feared  lest  their  emancipation  should  disgrace  the  middle 
white  classes  by  raising  the  blacks  to  their  level. 


88  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

This  division  of  classes  facilitated  the  organization  of  the  forces 
of  the  South.  Each  of  them  had  its  part  in  the  drama  laid  out, 
and  the  transition  from  a  state  of  peace  to  one  of  war  was  eifected 
with  so  little  trouble,  that  the  very  ease  with  which  it  was  accom- 
plished proved  to  be  a  dangerous  temptation,  which  contributed 
to  drag  the  South  into  the  fatal  path  where  it  was  destined  to  find 
defeat  and  ruin. 

The  negroes  naturally  remained  attached  to  the  soil,  and  by 
continuing  their  forced  labors,  they  saved  the  agricultural  inter- 
ests of  the  South  from  those  serious  troubles  which  the  prepara- 
tions for  war  inflicted  upon  those  of  the  North,  and  thereby 
sustained  the  cause  of  those  who  riveted  their  chains.  While  at 
the  North  every  soldier  who  donned  the  uniform  left  some  em- 
ployment useful  to  society,  in  the  South  the  truly  productive 
population  never  ceased  for  a  moment  to  contribute  to  the  com- 
mon wants. 

The  common  white  people,  who,  doomed  to  idleness  on  account 
of  their  social  position,  had  never  contributed  to  the  national 
wealth  in  a  manner  proportionate  to  their  number,  willingly  ex- 
changed the  leisure  of  their  poverty  for  the  occupations  of  mili- 
tary life.  They  constituted  the  principal  element  of  the  South- 
ern armies.  Useless  and  dangerous  in  a  well-regulated  commu- 
nity, they  were  fully  prepared  for  this  new  role.  Habituated 
to  the  privations  of  a  precarious  existence,  accustomed  from  in- 
fancy to  handling  arms,  which  they  considered  a  sign  of  nobility, 
zealous  in  defending  the  privileges  and  the  superiority  of  their 
race,  they  could  not  fail  to  become  formidable  soldiers  if  placed 
under  able  leaders. 

They  found  these  leaders  among  the  superior  class  of  slave- 
holders, from  whom  they  were  already  accustomed  to  receive 
directions.  Therefore,  although  grades  of  every  description  were 
made  elective,  the  new  soldiers,  faithful  to  their  habits,  almost 
invariably  selected  members  of  this  superior  class  to  command 
them ;  and  if  any  slaveholders,  during  the  first  outbursts  of  en- 
thusiasm, set  them  the  example  by  shouldering  the  musket,  none 
of  them  ever  remained  in  the  ranks.  It  followed  that  the  fatal 
system  of  electing  officers  was  not  productive  of  the  same  evil 


SLAVERY.  89 

effects  in  the  South  as  in  the  North,  and  was  continued  much 
longer. 

We  have  not,  as  yet,  spoken  of  the  population  of  the  cities, 
because  it  had  not  felt  so  directly  the  effects  of  the  servile  institu- 
tion as  those  living  in  the  country,  and  because,  moreover,  it  was 
too  small  to  exercise  much  influence.  Much  inferior  to  the  slave- 
holders, but  superior  to  the  common  whites,  this  population  was 
recruited  from  among  the  latter  class  and  European  emigrants, 
especially  the  Irish,  who  seldom  get  beyond  the  walls  of  Amer- 
ican cities.  Therefore,  although  noisily  in  favor  of  the  slave- 
system,  they  did  not  look  upon  it  as  the  very  basis  of  society, 
nor  did  they  defend  the  institution  with  as  much  zeal  as  did  the 
whites  who  lived  in  the  country  in  the  midst  of  negro  laborers. 
The  Confederate  States  had  but  one  cit}-,  New  Orleans,  which 
could  rival  the  great  cities  of  the  North,  and  only  two  others, 
Richmond  and  Charleston,  the  two  political  centres  of  secession, 
with  a  population  of  more  than  thirty  thousand  inhabitants. 
Among  these  there  were  negro  slaves,  and  free  mulattoes,  a  pretty 
large  class  exclusively  devoted  to  city  life,  and  the  more  hostile  to 
the  whites  because  it  was  more  intelligent,  and  the  ban  under 
which  it  lay  was  less  justified  by  the  color  of  its  skin.  The  white 
population  of  the  cities  could  not  be  estimated  at  more  than  two 
hundred  thousand  souls.*  ^ 

When,  therefore,  the  Southern  leaders,  beaten  at  the  elections, 
were  about  to  resort  to  arms  in  order  to  re-establish  the  suprem- 
acy of  slavery  among  them,  public  opinion,  long  prepared  for  the 
occasion,  was  ready  to  applaud  their  action  and  to  second  their 
efforts  with  energy ;  while  the  various  classes  of  society  tendered 
them  all  the  necessary  means  for  speedily  organizing  their  armies. 
*  See  Appendix  to  this  volume,  Note  C. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  CONFEDERATE   VOLUNTEERS. 

WE  have  shown  how  the  influence  of  slavery,  which  dragged 
the  Southern  States  into  civil  war,  had  also  created  certain 
classes  among  them  ready  to  furnish  all  the  elements  of  an  army, 
the  organization  of  which  had  long  been  in  contemplation. 

Consequently,  while  the  North  was  sincerely  trying  to  effect 
some  kind  of  political  compromise,  companies  of  volunteers  were 
seen  assembling  and  arming  in  haste  throughout  the  whole  of 
the  slave  States.  Their  minds  were  bent  upon  war,  and  they  went 
to  work  with  the  greatest  energy.  The  zeal  of  the  women  stim- 
ulated that  of  the  men;  and  in  that  population,  essentially  indo- 
lent, whoever  hesitated  to  don  the  uniform  was  set  down  as  a  cow- 
ard. The  planters,  being  at  all  times  in  dread  of  servile  insur- 
rections, had  given  to  the  local  militia  an  eifective  organization 
whicli  it  did  not  have  in  the  North.  They  had  cadres  sufficiently 
trained  and  instructed  to  receive  volunteers  at  once.  Finally,  the 
West  Point  Academy  and  the  military  colleges  founded  by  sev- 
eral States  had  contributed  to  disseminate  a  knowledge  of  mil- 
itary aifairs  among  the  better  classes. 

The  volunteers  who  took  up  arms  at  the  first  signal  of  their 
leaders  did  not  wait  for  the  announcement  of  the  act  of  separa- 
tion to  assemble.  In  the  border  States,  where,  public  opinion 
being  divided,  the  Federal  authority  was  at  first  able  to  sustain 
itself  in  the  midst  of  the  political  convulsion,  the  future  soldiers 
of  the  Confederacy  met  and  organized  under  the  very  eyes  of  its 
agents. 

Wherever  the  pro-slavery  element,  essentially  intolerant,  was 
in  the  majority,  it  exercised  the  same  despotism  over  the  minor- 
ity that  its  leaders  imposed  upon  it.  Those  who  regretted  the 
national  flag,  ^ho  questioned  the  constitutionality  of  the  princi- 

90 


THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS.  '     91 

pie  which  had  been  invoked  to  justify  the  separation,  or  who  did 
not  consider  its  application  well  timed,  were  reduced  to  silence ; 
and  even  this  silence  soon  ceased  to  give  satisfaction.  As  it  hap- 
pens in  all  revolutions,  professions  of  devotion  to  the  new  order 
of  things  were  exacted  from  those  who  were  suspected  of  luke- 
warmness.  Among  the  Northern  men  settled  in  the  South,  some 
embraced  the  cause  of  slavery  with  the  ardor  of  neophytes,  but 
those  who  did  not  atone  for  the  crime  of  having  been  born  in 
the  free  States,  by  this  method,  became  the  victims  of  popular 
hatred  and  violence.  In  the  South-western  States,  where  the 
manners  are  rough,  they  were  subjected  to  downright  persecution. 
In  each  of  the  growing  centres  of  civilization,  where  farmers 
came  from  afar  across  the  forests  to  attend  to  their  political  and 
commercial  affairs,  vigilance  committees  were  formed,  composed 
of  men  who  had  been  conspicuous  for  their  excesses  during  the 
electoral  struggles.  Assuming  unlimited  power  without  author- 
ity, they  united  in  themselves  the  attributes  of  a  committee 
of  public  safety  with  the  functions  of  a  revolutionary  tr'bunal. 
The  bar-room  was  generally  the  place  of  their  meetings,  and 
a  revolting  parody  of  the  august  forms  of  justice  was  mingled 
with  their  noisy  orgies.  Around  the  counter,  on  which  gin  and 
whisky  circulated  freely,  a  few  frantic  individuals  pronounced 
judgment  upon  their  fellow-citizens,  whether  present  or  absent ; 
the  accused  saw  the  fatal  rope  being  made  ready  even  before  he 
had  been  interrogated ;  the  person  in  contumacy  was  only  in- 
formed of  his  sentence  when  he  fell  by  the  bullet  of  the  execu- 
tioner, stationed  behind  a  bush  for  that  purpose.  Personal  ani- 
mosities were  at  the  bottom  of  the  greater  part  of  these  decrees. 
In  order  to  punish  the  workman  or  the  settler  from  the  North 
for  his  intelligence  and  success,  his  envious  neighbors  called  him 
an  abolitionist.  If  some  courageous  friend  did  not  answer  for 
his  admiring  approval  of  slavery,  he  was  lost.  At  times,  how- 
ever, the  fumes  of  alcohol,  mounting  to  the  heads  of  the  judges, 
would  enkindle  quarrels  between  them,  soon  ending  in  bloodshed, 
in  the  midst  of  which  both  the  trial  and  the  accused  were  equally 
forgotten. 

But  if  the  latter  was  spared  his  life,  it  was  only  that  he  might 
devote  it  to  the  service  of  the  Confederacy.     He  was  to  consider 


92  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

himself  fortunate  in  being  able  to  prove  his  devotion,  without 
whicli  he  would  have  deserved  death.  He  therefore  went  to  en- 
list as  a  volunteer  at  the  nearest  recruiting-office ;  and,  by  a  bitter 
irony  of  fortune,  he  would  sometimes  find  himself  enrolled  in 
some  such  regiment  as  the  Louisiana  Tigers  or  the  llisslssippi  In-' 
vinciblcs,  names  in  singular  contrast  with  his  gloomy  thoughts. 

A  few  executions  and  a  considerable  number  of  forced  enlist- 
ments sufficed  to  crush  out  every  expression  of  Union  sentiments. 
Vigilance  committees  were  formed  in  all  the  Southern  States;  and 
if  they  did  not  everywhere  ])roceed  to  the  extremes  of  violence, 
they  everywhere  trampled  under  foot  all  public  and  individual 
liberties,  by  resorting  to  search-warrants  and  other  vexatious  pro- 
ceedings, which,  by  intimidating  the  weak  and  stimulating  the 
irresolute,  contributed  to  fill  up  the  cadres  of  the  voluuteer  regi- 
ments rapidly. 

The  burden  of  the  war  was  to  fall  exclusively  upon  the  white 
population  of  those  States  which  at  the  commencement  of  1861 
had  set  aside  the  Federal  authority ;  this  population,  according  to 
the  census  of  18G0,  amounted  to  5,449,463  souls — or  nearly  five 
millions  and  a  half- — out  of  which  number  690,000  men  able  to 
bear  arms  were  to  be  raised.  This  last  figure  represents  the  total 
of  all  the  forces  that  the  Confederacy  was  at  any  time  able  to 
command.  Owing  to  the  social  causes  we  have  mentioned,  and 
the  conviction  of  every  person  who  played  a  decided  part,  there 
were  enlisted  in  the  course  of  the  year  1861  nearly  350,000  men; 
that  is  to  say,  more  than  one-half  of  the  adult  and  eligible  male 
population.  This  first  effort  of  the  South  was,  in  proportion  to 
her  resources,  much  greater  than  that  of  the  North ;  and  the  mil- 
itary power  she  dis})laycd  so  rapidly,  added  to  all  the  advantages 
of  a  defensive  position,  could  not  fail  to  give  her  a  superiority 
at  the  outset  of  the  war. 

But  while  the  North,  slow  in  making  use  of  her  resources,  found 
in  every  disaster  the  occasion  for  increasing  her  amny,  which,  by 
this  means,  was  at  the  close  of  the  war  twice  as  large  as  it  was  at 
the  beginn'jig,  the  South  Avas  not  in  a  condition  to  sustain  the  ex- 
traordinary effort  she  had  made  at  the  outset.  Notwithstanding 
the  idleness  of  her  wliite  population,  Avhich  favored  the  adoption 
of  military  service,  it  was  found  necessary  to  resort  to  conscrip- 


THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS.  93 

tion  as  soon  as  the  conflicts  had  thinned  the  ranks  of  the  first  en- 
listed vohmteers.  The  longer  the  war  is  continued,  the  more  we 
shall  find  the  Confederate  government  resorting  to  all  sorts  of 
violent  expedients  in  order  to  drain  an  already  exhausted  country 
of  the  little  strength  it  yet  possessed.  The  despotic  system  which 
had  so  rapidly  brought  all  its  resources  into  operation  will  then 
have  no  other  effect  than  to  destroy  irretrievably  whatever  is  left ; 
and  if  it  compel  all  able-bodied  men  to  don  the  uniform,  it  will 
not  prevent  one-half  of  the  surviving  soldiers  from  deserting  their 
ranks  at  the  end  of  the  war,  to  return  secretly  to  their  homes,  or 
to  seek  liberty  among  the  forests. 

At  this  period  of  intoxication  which  precipitated  them  into 
civil  war,  nothing  could  convince  the  men  of  the  South  of  the 
fragility  of  their  new  political  edifice.  Although  used  to  biblical 
citations,  they  had  forgotten  the  history  of  that  miraculous  tree 
which  grew  up  in  one  night  to  shield  the  prophet  Jonah,  but 
which  the  sting  of  an  invisible  worm  destroyed  as  rapidly  within 
the  space  of  a  single  day.  Their  Confederacy  had  grown  in  the 
same  way,  and  they  already  saw  it  spreading  its  shadow  over  the 
whole  of  America,  little  dreaming  that  it  also  bore  within  its 
roots  a  gnawing  worm,  slavery,  and  that  its  institutions,  founded 
upon  despotism  and  contempt  for  humanity,  would  be  withered 
by  the  burning  blast  of  civil  war. 

Everything  was  the  subject  of  illusions  in  the  South — illusions 
concerning  the  weakness  of  her  adversary,  illusions  in  regard  to 
her  own  perseverance. 

Accustomed  to  look  upon  Northern  men,  the  Yankees,  as 
peaceful  merchants,  the  caste  which  had  arrogated  to  itself  the 
title  of  Southern  chivalry  would  not  believe  that  they  could  ever 
become  soldiers.  The  grossest  calumnies  circulated  by  the  ncAvs- 
papers  about  them  remained  uncontradicted,  and  after  having 
been  so  long  connected  in  politics  as  well  as  in  business  with  their 
brethren  of  the  North,  the  people  of  the  South  were  absolutely  ig- 
norant of  the  resources  of  their  character  and  their  manly  qualities. 

It  is  true  that  they  did  not  possess  a  better  knowledge  of  them- 
selves. The  inflammatory  speeches  of  their  stump  orat)rs,  called 
in  AvLMiYxcdi  fire-eaters,  although  usually  appreciated  by  the  good 
sense  of  the  public,  had,  in  this  instance,  over-excited  the  pas- 


94  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

sions  of  the  multitude,  and  only  reflected  wliat  the  majority 
thought  and  what  every  one  said. 

No  one  was  doubtful  of  success  ;  everybody  was  convinced  that, 
despite  all  the  obstinacy  of  which  the  Yankees  were  capable,  the 
independence  of  the  South  would  eventually  be  secured.  No 
efforts  would  be  spared  to  wear  out  the  enemy  and  compel  him  to 
recognize  it.  If  the  organized  armies  should  be  destroyed,  guer- 
illa bands  would  be  formed,  which,  hoisting  the  black  flag  and 
giving  no  quarter,  should  perpetuate  the  war  through  every  avail- 
able means,  and  fight  as  long  as  they  could  handle  a  knife. 
Events  were  destined  to  frustrate,  in  the  most  striking  manner, 
these  projects  of  war  to  the  death  ;  instead  of  sheltering  guerillas, 
as  we  have  already  stated,  the  virgin  forests  only  became  the 
refuge  of  deserters.  But  the  illusions  which  inspired  the  people 
of  the  South  Avith  such  blind  confidence  were  sincere ;  the  harsh 
condemnation  of  history  must  be  reserved  for  the  leaders  who 
flattered  them,  who  kept  up  those  illusions,  and  who  were  yet  too 
well  acquainted  with  the  character  of  their  countrymen,  and  saw 
too  clearly  the  consequences  of  a  defeat,  to  share  them. 

The  volunteers  repaired  to  the  recruiting-ofiices  which  had 
been  opened  by  the  initiative  action  of  the  most  zealous  and  am- 
bitious persons  in  every  district.  The  formation  of  regiments 
which  were  thus  spontaneously  called  into  existence  throughout 
the  Southern  States  was  generally  the  private  work  of  a  few  indi- 
viduals, associated  together  for  that  purpose  in  their  respective 
villages  or  quarters.  One  would  collect  a  squad,  another  a  com- 
pany ;  parish  associations,  coteries,  and  individual  influence  con- 
stituted the  early  ties  among  the  soldiers  thus  recruited.  The 
different  detachments,  once  assembled,  were  grouped  by  counties 
or  by  towns  to  be  formed  into  regiments ;  all  the  higher  grades 
were  conferred,  by  election,  upon  those  who  by  their  birth,  wealth, 
or  recent  services  in  the  matter  of  enlistments  were  thought  to  be 
entitled  to  the  choice  of  their  future  subordinates.  This  first 
organization,  an  entirely  spontaneous  creation  of  the  national 
movement,  often  preceded  the  legal  call  for  volunteers. 

Presently,  the  governors  of  States  intervened  for  the  purpose 
of  regulating  the  organization,  by  fixing  the  number  of  men  to 
be  raised  and  the  quota  of  each  county.     The  legislatures  of  the 


THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS.  95 

States  that  had  just  voted  in  favor  of  separation  confirmed  the 
action  of  the  governors  by  authorizing  the  necessary  appropriations 
for  the  support  of  the  troops  destined  to  sustain  their  rebellion 
against  the  Federal  authority.  The  regiments  were  then  mus- 
tered into  the  service  of  the  several  States.  The  officers  already 
elected  were  confirmed  in  their  respective  grades ;  brigades  were 
formed,  to  which  staff  officers  were  assigned ;  a  large  number  of 
generals  were  appointed,  and  the  particular  army  of  each  State 
found  itself  thus  constituted. 

This  organization  by  States,  in  conformity  with  the  principle 
of  their  independence,  would  have  been  kept  up  in  the  new  Con- 
federacy, if  the  principle  itself  had  been  the  cause,  and  not  the 
mere  pretext,  of  the  war.  But  although  useful  at  first,  it  proved 
subsequently  to  be  only  an  encumbrance  to  the  Southern  leaders, 
who  hastened  to  get  rid  of  it.  In  order  to  succeed,  they  needed 
a  despotic  central  power,  capable  of  pushing  the  war  to  extremes, 
whose  iron  hand  should  be  able  to  supply  the  want  of  popular 
enthusiasm  when,  as  was  to  be  expected,  it  should  become  weary. 
Such  was  the  dominant  idea  of  the  delegates  who  established  a 
provisional  government  at  Montgomery,  a  small  town  in  Alabama. 
In  confiding  the  executive  power  to  Mr.  Davis,  who  had  been  the 
soul  of  the  rebellion,  they  united  into  one  solid  whole  the  scat- 
tered forces  of  the  Confederacy.  While  they  inserted  in  their  frail 
constitution  a  guarantee  for  all  their  new  constitutional  theories, 
they  practically  tightened  the  bonds  of  centralization;  and  defer- 
ring the  fulfilment  of  their  promises,  which  were  all  destined  to  be 
blown  away  by  the  same  puff  of  wind,  to  a  more  auspicious  sea- 
son, they  hastened  to  give  the  absolute  control  of  all  their  re- 
sources to  the  pilot  who  was  to  guide  the  skiff,  upon  which  they 
had  rashly  embarked  their  fortunes,  through  the  storm.  Conse- 
quently, without  wasting  time  in  the  preparation  of  organic  laws, 
of  which  it  knew  the  weakness,  the  provisional  government 
devoted  all  its  attention  to  the  consolidation  of  the  military 
forces  of  the  South. 

It  was  well  aware  of  the  necessity  of  making  preparations  for  a 
serious  war,  and,  in  view  of  that  fact,  of  embodying  all  the  inde- 
pendent regiments  it  had  under  its  control  into  one  homogeneous 
army.      Congress  had  hardly  assembled,  the  Confederacy  only 


96  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

counting  seven  stars  on  its  new  escutcheon,  when  it  assisted  Mr 
Davis  in  this  work.  It  entrusted  him  with  the  supreme  manage- 
ment of  military  operations,  with  authority  to  muster  into  the 
service  of  the  central  government  the  volunteers  of  the  several 
States.  On  the  6th  of  March,  1861,  the  number  of  these  volun- 
teers was  fixed  at  one  hundred  thousand,  and  their  term  of  enlist- 
ment for  one  year,  and,  at  the  same  time,  orders  were  issued  di- 
recting the  formation  of  a  general  staff  for  the  provisional  army, 
and  the  organization  of  a  regular  army. 

The  provisional  army  was  to  be  reorganized  as  soon  as  the 
adopted  Constitution  should  be  put  in  force,  and  it  was  decided 
that  all  the  State  troops  of  which  it  was  composed  should  then  be 
re-enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy  for  a  period  fixed  by 
Congress.  Contrary  to  what  had  hitherto  been  the  practice  in 
the  United  States,  where  the  Federal  compact  vested  the  right  of 
maintaining  troops  in  time  of  peace  exclusively  in  the  central 
authority,  there  were  seen,  among  the  particular  contingents  of 
the  several  States,  what  were  called  regular  troops,  intended  to  be 
kept  in  service  after  the  end  of  the  Avar  and  the  recognition  of 
their  independence.  But  in  the  mean  time,  the  Confederate  gov- 
ernment took  them  into  its  service  and  pay,  and  provided  them 
with  staff  officers  and  administrative  departments,  either  by  ap- 
pointing new  officers  or  by  confirming  the  appointments  already 
made  by  the  governors  of  the  States.  In  both  cases  these  officers 
held  their  commissions  from  the  President,  and  retained  them 
during  the  entire  war. 

We  shall  not  now  enter  into  details  as  to  the  recruiting  and 
organization  of  the  Confederate  army.  In  this  matter  the  men 
of  the  South,  true  to  American  customs  and  traditions,  took  for 
their  model  the  levies  of  other  periods,  especially  those  of  the 
Mexican  war,  under  the  Union  flag ;  and  their  organization  was 
precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the  armies  of  the  North,  of  which 
we  shall  speak  more  at  length  hereafter.  The  habits,  the  modes 
of  thought  and  of  action  were  so  similar  throughout  every  section 
of  the  republic  that,  in  spite  of  their  desire  to  be  considered  a 
separate  nation,  the  people  of  the  South  could  not  disclaim  the 
traditions  they  held  in  common  with  their  brethren  of  the  North, 
to  preserve  a  distinct  character.     When  they  sought  to  enact  laws 


THE  CONFEDERATE   VOLUNTEERS.  97 

for  themselves,  they  took  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  altered 
the  sense,  without  modifying  its  form.  They  selected  for  their 
new  flag  that  which  most  resembled  the  banner  of  1776.  Finally, 
in  their  efforts  to  raise  volunteers,  and  to  organize  the  interior 
mechanism  of  their  armies,  they  scrupulously  jjreserved  and 
applied  the  system  which  had  prevailed  before  secession,  and 
which  we  shall  see  put  into  practice  by  the  North  on  a  very  large 
scale.  They  pursued  this  course  so  far  as  to  organize  a  corps  of 
regular  troops,  independent  of  the  authority  of  so-called  sovereign 
States,  and  they  copied  the  old  army  of  the  United  States  so  ex- 
actly that  they  limited  its  strength  to  the  insignificant  figure  of 
ten  thousand  men.  But  this  army,  unable  to  compensate  for  its 
numerical  weakness  either  by  its  traditions  or  the  elements  that 
composed  it,  was  not  in  any  way  distinguished  from  the  other 
Confederate  troops,  and  had  no  special  part  to  play  in  the  war. 

Never,  perhaps,  since  the  time  of  Csesar,  could  the  sad  words 
of  Lucan  have  been  applied  with  so  much  truth  to  any  civil  war 
as  to  this  one  : 

Pares  aquilas  et  pila  minantia  pilis. 

This  war,  however,  developed  important  differences  of  charac- 
ter between  men  composing  armies  so  similar  in  their  organiza- 
tions. Those  of  the  South  became  good  soldiers  more  rapidly 
than  those  of  the  North.  They  were  more  accustomed  to  follow 
leaders ;  their  life  was  rouglier  than  that  of  the  Eastern  farmers, 
and  more  adventurous  than  that  of  the  Western  pioneers.  Inured 
to  privations,  they  were  satisfied  with  rations  which  the  Federal 
soldier  looked  upon  as  insufficient.  Hence  that  rapidity  of  move- 
ment which  was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  all  their  successes. 
Rarely  paid  by  the  government,  which,  unable  to  solve  its  finan- 
cial difficulties,  fairly  ignored  their  claims,  they  never  asked  for 
the  depreciated  paper  which  was  due  to  them,  except  when  they 
thought  their  officers  better  treated  than  themselves,  and  then  it 
was  sufficient  to  lead  them  against  the  foe  to  pacify  them.  Nearly 
all  of  them  were  practiced  in  the  use  of  fireams,  and  one  might 
see  them  enter  the  recruiting-offices  with  the  rifle  on  their  shoul- 
ders and  the  revolver  at  the  belt — weapons  which  they  never  laid 
aside,  and  without  which  they  would  not  have  considered  them- 
VoL.  I.— 7 


98  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

selves  safe.  In  fine,  they  carried  into  the  war  more  pafesion  than 
their  adversaries ;  the  Federals  to  them  were  invaders  who  had 
always  been  painted  in  the  blackest  colors,  and  who,  in  coming  to 
free  the  negroes,  intended  to  make  them  the  equals  of  the  common 
whites,  and  consequently  to  humble  the  jealous  caste  to  which 
those  whites  belonged. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Confederate  soldier  was  inferior,  in  point 
of  intelligence  and  information,  to  that  of  the  North.  Southern 
society  being  divided  into  very  distinct  classes,  the  elite  of  the 
population  only  were  cultivated ;  the  rest  had  no  education  what- 
ever. While  primary  schools  were  universal  in  the  North,  pro- 
found ignorance  reigned  among  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
slave  States.  This  difference,  which  the  census  tables  of  1860 
exhibit  in  a  striking  manner,  had  a  great  bearing  on  the  issues  of 
the  conflict ;  for  the  nations  that  are  really  strong  are  not  those 
which  possess  a  few  distinguished  men,  but  those  in  Avhich  the 
moral  and  intellectual  standard  of  the  greatest  number  is  most 
elevated.  In  the  knapsacks  of  the  Confederate  soldiers  there  were 
found  more  playing-cards  than  books  or  writing  materials,  while 
the  use  of  strong  drinks  was  much  more  prevalent  among  them 
than  among  those  of  the  North.  Whether  this  vice  >vas  more 
congenial  to  their  tastes,  or  whether  it  was'  deemed  expedient  to 
tolerate  it  as  a  kind  of  compensation  for  all  their  privations,  the 
Confederate  officers  were  unable  strictly  to  enforce  the  rules  which 
prohibited  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors  among  their  troops.  Nor 
did  the  Southern  armies  have  in  their  ranks  any  of  those  artisans 
skilled  in  all  the  mechanical  trades  that  were  to  be  found  in  the 
armies  of  the  North,  whose  craft  enabled  every  Federal  regiment 
to  supply  the  necessary  men  for  the  reconstruction  of  railroads, 
the  repairing  of  locomotives,  or  for  running  a  train ;  so  that  the 
Confederates  were  more  than  once  under  the  necessity  of  applying 
to  Northern  men,  forcibly  enlisted,  for  this  kind  of  service,  or  of 
confiding  the  task  to  their  own  officers,  whose  inexperience  cost 
them  dear.  To  the  common  whites,  in  short,  taught  to  despise 
every  kind  of  manual  labor,  the  soldier's  trade  was,  what  used  to 
be  called  formerly,  a  noble  profession,  and  they  felt  degraded 
when  called  upon  to  handle  the  shovel.  They  often  refused  to 
work   in  those  trenches  which  played  such  a  conspicuous  part 


THE  CONFEDERATE   VOLUNTEERS.  99 

during  the  war.  A  few  requisitions  for  negro  help  made  ujion 
the  large  slaveholders  supplied  this  want,  and,  by  sparing  the  free 
men  a  certain  amount  of  hard  work,  enabled  them  to  devote  more 
time  to  their  military  training.  They  were  not,  however,  relieved 
entirely  from  these  labors ;  the  authority  of  their  chiefs  succeeded 
in  conquering  their  repugnance,  and  in  cases  of  great  urgency 
they  constructed  with  their  own  hands  the  works  which  indicate 
to  this  day  the  progress  of  their  campaigns. 

The  character  of  the  soldiers  and  the  composition  of  the  Con- 
federate armies  had  much  to  do  with  the  manner  in  which  the 
war  was  waged  by  the  latter,  and  the  part  which  the  various  arms 
played  in  it. 

The  Confederate  foot-soldier,  easier  to  manage  and  more  excit- 
able than  his  adversary,  would  rush  to  the  charge  with  savage 
yells,  and,  in  this  way,  he  frequently  carried  positions  which  the 
latter,  with  equal  courage,  could  not  have  captured.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  possessing  neither  his  patience  nor  his  tenacity  under 
a  murderous  fire,  he  was  much  less  able  to  defend  them.  So 
that,  in  the  course  of  the  war,  we  shall  always  find  the  Southern 
officers  trying  to  surprise  some  point  or  another  of  the  Federal 
lines  with  heavy  masses.  This  infantry,  which  M^ould  not  have 
cut  a  very  brilliant  figure  at  a  review  by  the  precision  of  its  move- 
ments, possessed  the  art  of  marching  through  the  densest  forests 
in  good  order,  deployed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  avoid  trees,  and 
yet  without  becoming  separated.  This  art  rendered  those  sur- 
prises easy  of  achievement,  by  enabling  a  body  of  infantry  to 
hide  within  the  depths  of  the  forest  without  being  preceded  by 
any  line  of  skirmishers,  and  to  approach  the  enemy  with  suf- 
ficient rapidity  to  attack  him  suddenly  in  the  clearing  where  he 
was  encamped.  The  history  of  the  war  will  show  how  useful 
this  kind  of  tactics  was  to  the  Confederate  generals — how  they 
availed  themselves  of  it  to  compel  the  enemy  to  extend  his  lines 
so  as  to  cover  all  his  positions  at  once ;  in  this  manner  they  fre- 
quently obtained  advantages  upon  the  point  of  attack  with  infe- 
rior forces ;  and  if  their  columns  were  repulsed,  they  were  quickly 
withdrawn  and  led  elsewhere  to  attack  some  other  position.  We 
shall  also  find,  however,  that  they  did  not  apply  these  tactics  to 
advantage  when  they  found  themselves  among  the  un wooded  hills 


100  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  Pennsylvania ;  there  they  could  not  avail  themselves  of  the 
skill  of  their  soldiers  by  deploying  them  as  sharpshooters  to  cover 
their  attacks  against  open  positions  defended  by  artillery.  These 
soldiers,  more  practiced  in  the  use  of  the  rifle  than  those  of  the 
North,  were  well  adapted  for  such  service ;  they  proved  this  dur- 
ing the  sieges  and  those  slow  operations  where  the  two  armies, 
after  having  both  fallen  back  into  their  respective  entrenchments, 
reconnoitred  each  other  in  turn,  and  drew  their  lines  closer  by 
degrees  without  daring  to  charge  each  other  openly.  Posted 
behind  breastworks,  or  in  a  rifle-pit,  they  would  watch  the  Federal 
works  with  the  cool  vigilance  of  a  hunter  who  has  passed  many 
days  motionless  by  the  side  of  some  deserted  lake,  watching  for 
the  stag  that  is  sure  to  come  to  quench  his  thirst  at  sunset ;  and 
it  only  required  to  place  a  hat  on  the  point  of  a  bayonet  and  raise 
it  slowly  above  the  Federal  parapets  to  see  all  the  bushes,  which 
seemed  to  have  been  innocently  planted  in  front  of  the  enemy's 
line,  enveloped  in  smoke,  and  that  improvised  target  pierced  by 
as  many  balls. 

During  the  first  campaigns,  the  habits  and  education  of  the 
Confederate  soldiers  gave  to  their  cavalry  a  still  more  marked 
superiority  over  that  of  their  adversaries.  This  superiority  was 
wrongly  attributed  to  the  merit  of  the  chiefs  who  commanded  it ; 
for  if  Ashby,  Stuart,  and  all  those  brilliant  officers  who  organ- 
ized the  cavalry  of  the  South  won  at  first  the  respect  and  admi- 
ration of  their  enemies,  they  found  in  front  of  them  generals 
equally  expert  in  the  art  of  handling  that  arm  of  the  military 
service :  Sheridan,  Stoneman,  Kilpatrick,  and  many  others  demon- 
strated this  as  soon  as  they  had  good  troops  to  command.  The 
severe  discipline  which  had  been  introduced  into  the  Confederate 
army  was  the  means  of  moulding  those  cavalrymen  to  the  dif- 
ficult task  they  had  to  accomplish;  but  their  superiority  was 
chiefly  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  had  been  recruited  at  the  out- 
set among  the  better  classes  of  the  population — among  those  coun- 
trymen who,  before  the  war,  were  in  sufficiently  easy  circum- 
stances to  own  a  horse,  and  who,  on  enlisting,  had  brought  it 
with  them.  Inured  to  bodily  exercise,  and  having  learned  horse- 
manship in  a  country  where  the  roads  really  accessible  to  car- 
riages were  scarce,  they  formed  a  class  of  mounted  men  already 


THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS.  101 

well  trained,  which  did  not  exist  in  the  North.  They  were  more- 
over to  have  the  advantage  of  almost  invariably  fighting  on  their 
own  soil,  of  being  well  acquainted,  tlierefore,  with  the  minutest 
details  of  the  ground  on  which  they  were  to  operate,  and  of  being 
assisted  by  the  connivance  of  the  sympathizing  inhabitants,  ready 
to  assume  the  character  of  volunteer  spies  in  order  to  serve  their 
cause.  In  the  war  they  had  undertaken,  they  were  sure  to  meet 
at  every  stage  with  provisions  and  aid  of  all  kinds,  together  with 
valuable  information  and  the  necessary  guides  to  enable  them  to 
avoid  the  enemy  or  to  surprise  him  as  they  saw  fit.  The  negroes 
themselves,  notwithstanding  their  sympathies  for  the  cause  of  the 
Union,  became  the  involuntary  auxiliaries  of  the  cavalrymen  of 
+he  South,  who,  long  accustomed  to  live  among  them,  knew  better 
than  the  Federals  how  to  make  allowances  for  their  lively  imagi- 
nations, and  to  winnow  out  the  truth  from  the  exaggerated  or 
contradictory  reports  which  they  hardly  ever  dared  to  withhold. 
It  will  be  seen  from  the  narrative  of  the  war  how  much  this  ele- 
ment of  success  contributed  to  build  up  the  superiority  of  the  Con- 
federate cavalry ;  for  it  lost  this  sui)eriority  whenever  it  ventured 
upon  the  soil  of  the  free  States,  and  it  failed  miserably  in  all  the 
expeditions  which  it  undertook  in  the  midst  of  hostile  populations. 
In  organizing  their  army  the  Confederates  were  unable  to  sup- 
ply it  with  a  field  artillery  equal  to  that  of  their  adversaries. 
They  had  undoubtedly  many  able  and  well-trained  officers ;  but 
as  a  general  thing,  their  soldiers  did  not  possess  that  intelligence 
and  taste  for  the  mechanical  arts  which,  in  a  short  time,  converted 
the  volunteers  of  the  North  into  excellent  artillerymen.  As  will 
be  seen  further  on,  their  materiel  was  also  of  an  inferior  quality  ; 
and  it  required  the  courage  and  the  daring  of  a  few  men  like 
Pendleton,  Stuart's  chief  of  artillery,  to  compensate  in  part  for 
this  inferiority.  This  was  not  the  case  with  the  Confederate  ar- 
tillery in  position.  That  portion  of  it  which  had  charge  of  the 
defences  of  their  seaports  was  mostly  recruited  in  the  cities, 
among  men  Avho,  from  their  education,  resembled  more  the  ar- 
tisans of  the  North  than  the  common  whites  of  the  South.  We 
shall  see  them,  therefore,  acquiring  under  able  instructors  a  great 
precision  of  aim,  and  holding  out  in  all  the  forts  along  the  coast, 
especially  at  Charleston,  against  the  Federal  armies  and  the  iron- 


102  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

clad  fleets  that  laid  siege  to  them.  But  these  men,  who  so  coolly 
handled  guns  whose  field  of  fire  had  long  been  studied,  had  a  much 
easier  task  to  perform  than  fell  to  the  lot  of  those  who,  in  the 
field  artillery,  had  to  place  their  guns  in  battery  amid  the  confu- 
sion of  battle,  and  to  judge,  by  a  single  glance,  of  the  exact  dis- 
tances on  an  unknown  ground,  in  order  to  regulate  the  elevations 
and  graduate  the  fuses. 

The  South  had  always  regarded  a  partisan  war  as  one  of  its 
principal  elements  of  defence  in  the  struggle  for  which  it  had 
long  been  preparing.  As  soon  as  it  broke  out  bands  were  seen 
forming  by  the  side  of  the  regularly  organized  army,  who  declared 
their  intention  of  fighting  on  their  own  account.  The  independ- 
ence they  expected  to  find  in  this  mode  of  warfare,  the  hope  of 
plunder,  and  the  attractions  of  an  adventurous  life  drew  into 
their  ranks  the  most  desperate  characters.  The  remembrance  of 
the  Mexican  brigands  had  remained  in  the  South  surrounded  in  a 
kind  of  romantic  halo  since  the  conquerors  of  Texas  had  fought 
them  and  adopted  their  customs ;  and  the  men  who  only  a  few 
years  before  had  attempted  to  wrest  Kansas  by  violence  from  the 
Northern  settlers,  in  defiance  of  all  laws,  set  an  example,  which 
was  promptly  followed,  by  organizing  armed  bands  destined  to 
become  very  popular  in  the  South  under  the  Spanish  name  of 
guerillas.  It  will  be  seen,  as  we  have  already  stated,  how  much 
the  Confederates  deceived  themselves  in  relying  upon  these  irreg- 
ular troops  to  render  it  impossible  for  their  adversaries  to  occupy 
any  portion  of  the  territory  they  might  conquer,  and  in  believing 
that  they  would  persevere  in  the  work  of  self-devotion  when  the 
cause  should  suffer  on  the  field  of  battle.  But  if  they  never 
succeeded  in  playing  more  than  an  accessory  part  in  regular  war- 
fare, that  part  was  none  the  less  an  important  one ;  and  so  long  as 
the  Confederate  armies  held  out,  despite  the  ground  they  were 
losing,  the  guerillas,  by  their  daring  attacks  upon  the  invader, 
were  of  immense  assistance  to  them. 

Appreciating  the  services  that  such  combatants  were  able  to 
render,  the  Confederate  Congress  gave  them  an  organization  and 
an  official  character,  which  were  to  secure  them  the  treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war  on  the  part  of  the  enemy.  They  signed  the  en- 
listment papers  like  other  volunteers,  their  leaders  were  bre vetted, 


THE  CONFEDERATE   VOLUNTEERS.  105 

and  placed  under  the  authority  of  a  few  generals,  who,  nominally 
at  least,  had  the  supreme  control  of  their  movements.  In  reality, 
however,  they  preserved  a  perfect  independence,  and  became,  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  characters  and  the  qualities  of  their 
chiefs,  either  formidable  soldiers,  animated  by  a  true  military 
spirit,  or  merely  armed  marauders,  who  knew  nothing  of  war 
except  its  most  melancholy  excesses. 

Accordingly,  the  partisans  who  were  organized  in  Virginia,  the 
most  ardent,  but  also  the  noblest  and  most  disinterested  of  the 
Southern  States,  were  nearly  all  animated  by  sincere  zeal,  earnest 
devotion  to  their  cause,  and  a  sentiment  of  honor  incompatible 
with  such  excesses.  Young  men  of  wealth  and  of  good  family 
enrolled  themselves  among  them,  certain  of  finding,  in  the  hum- 
blest positions,  an  opportunity  for  acquiring  that  quickness  of 
perception,  that  knowledge  of  the  country,  and  that  foresight  into 
details  which  form  the  warrior.  The  landowners  and  farmers, 
more  numerous  in  Virginia  than  in  the  other  slave  States,  who 
formed  a  large  portion  of  these  independent  organizations,  scarcely 
changed  their  habits  on  entering  this  new  career.  They  had  been 
acquainted  from  their  infancy  with  the  vast  forests  where  they 
were  going  to  make  war.  All  able-bodied  men  left  the  few  vil- 
lages scattered  among  these  forests  to  enlist,  and  there  was  not  a 
solitary  house  where  some  soldier  of  these  bands  was  not  sure  of 
meeting  some  female  relative  or  friend,  where  indeed  all  could 
not  be  greeted  with  a  few  words  of  sympathy,  so  calculated  to  add 
fresh  courage  to  the  wearied  soldier  when  they  fall  from  the  lips 
of  a  woman.  Such  troops,  so  adapted  for  intercepting  the  de- 
f,patches  of  an  enemy,  for  picking  up  his  stragglers,  or  attacking 
his  convoys,  for  cutting  railways  and  telegraph  lines  in  his  rear, 
were  to  form  an  excellent  body  of  scouts  to  the  regular  army 
about  to  defend  Virginia  against  the  Federal  invasion. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  conduct  of  the  Virginians  was 
not  always  imitated  by  the  other  Confederate  partisans,  who  were 
induced  by  less  worthy  motives  to  enrol  themselves  under  the 
banner  of  the  guerilla  chiefs.  The  reputation  of  the  latter  prom- 
ised them,  with  great  fatigue,  equally  great  plunder.  Conse- 
quently, the  volunteers  who  gathered  in  crowds  around  them  soon 
formed  into  bands  which  at  times  numbered  several  thousand 


104  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

horse.  We  shall  see  these  bands  constantly  at  work  during 
those  campaigns  which  desolated  the  Western  States,  destroying 
everything  on  their  way,  inflicting  as  much  injury  upon  the  most 
peaceful  inhabitants  of  those  regions  as  upon  the  Federal  soldiers 
they  came  to  fight,  and  getting  so  far  from  the  regular  armies,  on 
which  they  were  supposed  to  depend,  that  they  were  very  seldom 
of  any  assistance  in  their  operations.  A  minority,  more  or  less 
numerous,  in  those  States,  being  secretly  hostile  to  the  Confeder- 
ate cause,  this  circumstance  was  made  the  pretext  for  offering,  as 
an  inducement  to  adventurers  who  abounded  in  the  West,  a  regu- 
lar system  of  pillage.  All  who  joined  these  organizations  were 
authorized  to  take  whatever  might  be  useful  to  the  band — horses, 
arms,  equipments,  etc. — from  those  inhabitants  who  were  sus- 
pected of  entertaining  Union  sentiments,  and  the  soldiers  who 
brought  their  booty  to  headquarters  were  promised  the  full  value 
of  the  articles  thus  stolen.  The  result  might  easily  have  been 
foreseen.  No  partisan  could  fail  of  finding  some  cause  for  pre- 
ferring charges  of  sympathy  with  the  North  against  any  one  who 
was  worth  the  trouble  of  being  robbed.  This  premium  upon  pillage 
necessarily  rendered  those  soldiers  who  had  to  pass  final  judgment 
on  the  political  opinions  of  those  whose  property  they  coveted 
very  little  scrupulous,  and  their  number  increased  with  their  im- 
punity. In  short,  they  became  a  subject  of  so  much  dread  to  their 
own  friends  that,  had  the  war  ended  in  the  recognition  of  the 
Confederate  government,  the  latter  would  have  been  obliged  to 
inaugurate  a  new  civil  war,  to  get  rid  of  those  guerillas  who  had 
become  regular  gangs  of  bandits. 

One  may  form  an  opinion  of  the  value  of  such  soldiers  by  tak- 
ing into  consideration  the  character  of  their  chiefs,  and  also  by 
taking  as  a  type  of  whatever  there  was  of  good  and  of  evil  among 
them,  the  three  men  who  contributed  most  to  their  organiza- 
tion, and  whose  names  will  most  frequently  occur  in  the  course 
of  what  we  shall  have  occasion  to  say  regarding  these  corps  of  free- 
booters— Mosby,  Morgan,  and  Forrest. 

Mosby  was  a  Virginia  lawyer,  endowed  with  the  instinct  of 
that  partisan  war,  so  difficult  in  an  almost  uncultivated  country. 
His  character  and  political  passion  drew  around  him  men  full  of 
the  same  zeal  as  himself.     Consequently,  he  received  from  them 


THE  CONFEDERATE  VOLUNTEERS.  105 

the  most  unbounded  obedience  and  absolute  devotion.  A  wary 
politician  and  a  loyal  citizen  of  his  own  State,  when  he  saw,  after 
the  capitulation  of  the  regular  armies,  that  any  further  resist- 
ance would  only  unnecessarily  increase  the  suiferings  of  his 
countrymen,  he  discharged  his  men  with  a  few  words  full  of 
noble  sentiments,  and  with  a  pliability  of  mind  peculiarly  Amer- 
ican, he  quietly  went  back  to  his  office  and  resumed  his  former 
life. 

John  Morgan,  a  daring  horseman  and  a  genial  companion  be- 
fore the  war,  possessed  all  the  necessary  attributes  for  exercising 
an  unbounded  influence  over  the  youth  of  Kentucky,  his  native 
State.  Fiery  before  the  conflict,  but  calm  in  action,  of  a  gener- 
ous disposition,  but  inflexible  as  a  disciplinarian,  he  was  better 
able  than  any  other  man  to  curb  the  brutal  passions  and  develop 
the  best  instincts  of  the  rough  troopers  who  responded  to  his  call. 
Although  their  number  allowed  him  occasionally  during  the  war 
to  direct  long  and  complicated  operations,  he  preserved  through- 
out his  career  that  love  of  personal  adventure  which  had  made 
him  so  popular ;  and  thanks  to  the  presence  of  mind  which  en- 
abled him  to  get  out  of  the  most  perplexing  difficulties,  he  soon 
became  one  of  those  heroes  that  abound  in  legendary  story.  We 
shall  relate  his  campaigns,  but  it  would  fill  a  volume  to  enumerate 
all  the  daring  exploits  by  means  of  which  he  set  an  example  to 
his  soldiers  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  war,  riding  among  the 
Federal  posts  in  order  to  ascertain  their  positions  by  personal  ob- 
servation, sometimes  in  the  garb  of  a  farmer,  sometimes  in  the 
uniform  of  a  Union  officer,  taking  advantage  of  the  former  dis- 
guise to  draw  the  enemy  into  the  ambuscade  he  had  prepared  for 
him,  and  of  the  second,  to  issue,  with  imperturbable  assurance, 
orders  which  would  throw  the  enemy's  movements  into  confusion. 
Like  a  true  Kentuckian,  horses  were  his  ruling  passion ;  and  if 
in  the  course  of  this  narrative  we  shall  find  him  attempting  im- 
possible enterprises,  or  suddenly  diverting  any  of  his  expeditions 
from  their  apparent  purpose,  it  is  likely  that  the  hope  of  carry- 
ing off  some  blood  horses — the  only  booty  he  ever  allowed  him- 
self to  take — may  have  exercised  an  irresistible  influence  over  his 
action^* 

*  See  Appendix  to  this  volume,  Note  D. 


106  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Differing  widely  from  the  other  two  chiefs,  who,  w^hen  hostili- 
ties commenced,  gathered  the  greatest  number  of  partisans  around 
them,  Forrest  tarnished  his  undisputed  military  qualities  by  the 
appeals  he  made  to  the  brutal  passions  of  those  he  enrolled  under 
his  standard.  Though  never  imitating  the  excesses  of  Quantrell 
— that  brigand  whose  boast  it  was,  throughout  the  war,  that  he 
never  spared  a  single  human  being  he  met  in  whole  counties  of 
Missouri — this  true  captain  of  banditti,  resembling  those  that 
infested  Germany  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  used  to  en- 
courage his  men  to  acts  of  pillage,  and  would  close  his  eyes  to 
deeds  of  cruelty  of  which  they  were  often  guilty.  And  thus  we 
find  Forrest,  after  distinguishing  himself  by  remarkable  military 
achievements,  signalizing  himself  at  last  by  a  sinister  exploit — 
the  massacre  of  the  negro  garrison  of  Fort  Pillow.  He  organ- 
ized the  band  under  his  command  into  a  corps  of  mounted  in- 
fantry, in  which  every  man  was  provided  with  a  horse — less  for 
the  purpose  of  fighting  than  for  executing  rapid  marches,  at  the 
end  of  which  the  men  would  dismount,  take  up  their  muskets, 
and  carry  the  enemy's  positions,  thus  suddenly  attacked,  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet.  He  found  these  tactics  the  more  successful 
that  he  was  not  ashamed — no  more  than  the  Indian — to  beat  a 
hasty  retreat  whenever  he  found  his  adversary  on  his  guard.  HLs 
corps  increased  rapidly  by  the  addition  of  other  partisan  bands, 
w^hose  cliiefs  had  acquired  less  celebrity  than  himself.  He  soon 
grew  tired  of  being  only  a  guerilla  chief  like  Mosby  and  Morgan  : 
the  Confederate  government  testified  their  sense  of  his  services, 
and  of  his  own  importance  to  themselves,  by  investing  his  band 
with  the  attributes  of  regular  troops,  and  by  conferring  on  him- 
self the  rank  of  general.  This  reorganization  and  these  new 
titles,  however,  produced  no  change  either  in  the  leader  or  in  his 
men :  the  latter  still  pursued,  on  a  wider  field,  their  adventurous 
career,  alternating  between  battle  and  rapine,  and  the  former 
slave-dealer,  now  commanding  an  army  corps,  too  often  behaved 
as  if,  instead  of  wielding  a  sword,  he  still  flourished  the  blood 
stained  whip  of  the  dealer  in  human  flesh. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

WE  have  shown  in  a  former  chapter  the  great  and  real  cause 
of  the  civil  war,  and  in  another  the  military  resources 
which  the  South  called  to  its  aid  in  order  to  sustain  it.  In  this 
and  the  following  chapter  we  propose  to  point  out  the  principal 
features  of  the  political  crisis  which  preceded  the  civil  war,  and 
to  relate  the  occurrences  in  the  midst  of  which  the  United  States 
became  divided  into  two  hostile  camps. 

We  have  stated  that  slavery  had  become  the  basis  of  the  entire 
politico-economical  edifice  of  the  South ;  the  servile  institution 
must  be  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  danger  in  order  that  this 
edifice  might  run  no  risk  of  falling  to  pieces,  for,  even  though 
the  institution  itself  was  universally  respected  in  the  South,  the 
mere  vicinity  of  the  free  States  was  a  perpetual  menace  to  it. 
The  prosperity  of  these  States,  the  rapid  increase  of  their  popula- 
tion, which  absorbed  nearly  all  the  emigration  from  Europe,  and 
their  still  more  rapid  extension  of  territory,  secured  to  them  a 
daily  growing  influence  in  the  councils  of  the  Republic.  The 
slave  States  had  sought  to  balance  this  influence  by  extending  the 
servile  institution  into  the  yet  uncultivated  sections  of  the  conti- 
nent, by  disputing  the  territories  recently  opened  to  civilization 
with  the  settlers  from  the  North,  by  wresting  from  Mexico  some 
of  her  most  valuable  provinces  ;  and  they  thought  of  further  in- 
creasing the  number  of  their  States  by  seizing  Cuba  and  the  whole 
coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  They  had  succeeded,  by  means  of  a 
shrewd  policy,  in  creating  for  themselves  a  considerable  party  in 
the  North,  whose  support  had  long  given  them  a  preponderance 
in  the  Federal  elections,  and  had  enabled  them  to  govern  the 
Union  in  the  interest  of  their  policy.  The  advocates  of  this  pol- 
icy had  unscrupulously  taken  advantage  of  the  deep  attachment 

107 


108  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

which  the  great  majority  of  the  American  people  entertained  f(>r  their 
Constitution,  and,  by  constantly  threatening  to  break  it  up,  by  re- 
course to  the  most  violent  measures,  they  had  obtained  from  them 
all  the  concessions  necessary  for  the  maintenance  and  development 
of  their  system.  But  a  day  came  when  these  concessions  were  no 
longer  sufficient.  Despite  all  their  eiforts,  the  slave-owners  saw 
themselves  outstripped — conquered  by  the  progress  of  free  labor. 
In  order  to  secure  the  adherence  of  their  partisans  in  the  North, 
which  alone  could  give  them  the  control  of  public  affairs,  they 
were  also  obliged  to  make  certain  concessions  in  return.  They 
could  not  impose  upon  the  Kepublic,  to  its  full  extent,  the  policy 
on  the  success  of  which  they  had  staked  their  fortunes.  In  1860 
it  was  easy  to  foresee  that  their  rule  would  not  be  of  long  dura- 
tion, and  that  even  if  they  succeeded  in  legally  securing  a  govern- 
ment of  their  choice,  that  government  could  not  prevent  free  labor 
from  planting  itself  in  the  best  portions  of  the  continent.  Two 
alternatives,  both  equally  violent,  presented  themselves  to  them 
for  shielding  the  servile  institution  from  the  danger  which  threat- 
ened it.  They  must  either  separate  entirely  from  the  free  States, 
and  found  a  new  republic  of  slave  States,  freed  from  the  control 
of  their  former  associates ;  or  forcibly  extort  from  the  latter  the 
guarantees  henceforth  indispensable  to  the  institution  of  slavery, 
and  thus  make  sure  of  their  supremacy  over  all  the  continent. 
The  aversion  and  jealousy  entertained  for  the  North  led  the  ma- 
jority of  Southern  slaveholders  to  adopt  the  idea  of  founding  a 
separate  Republic,  in  which  they  could,  at  their  option,  consoli- 
date the  servile  institution.  But  clear-sighted  politicians,  while 
commending  this  project,  which  favored  their  designs,  foresaw 
the  danger  for  the  future,  and  fully  understood  that,  in  order  to 
exist,  a  community  founded  upon  slavery  must  not  only  be  inde- 
pendent, but  mistress  of  America. 

In  fact,  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  even  under  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  most  zealous  abolitionist,  would  have  been  less  dan- 
gerous to  the  Southern  community  than  separation,  pure  and  sim- 
ple, dividing  the  United  States  into  two  unequal  parts ;  one  of 
these  parts,  supposing  it  to  comprise  all  the  slave  States,  without 
excepting  those  which  remained  faithful  to  the  Federal  flag, 
would  have  had  a  population  of  eight  million  whites  and  four 


THE  FRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  109 

million  blacks ;  the  other  wonld  have  been  composed  of  the  rest 
of  the  Union — that  is  to  say,  of  the  great  body  of  the  free  States, 
continuing  to  form,  under  the  Federal  compact,  a  single  nation 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  From  amiable,  or  at  least  tol- 
erant, associates,  the  latter  would  have  become  formidable  rivals 
ani  implacable  enemies.  Finding  in  their  numerous  population, 
in  the  productive  system  of  free  labor,  and  their  vast  financial  re- 
sources, an  irresistible  element  of  colonization,  they  would  have 
successfully  competed  with  the  Southern  States,  already  fettered 
by  slavery,  divided  into  hostile  castes,  and  deprived  of  the  re- 
sources that  emigration  brings  to  the  new  continent.  In  a  few 
years,  the  free  States  would  have  completely  surrounded  the  ter- 
ritory occupied  by  the  servile  institution,  and  by  thus  closing  the 
avenues  of  future  expansion  against  it,  they  would  have  dealt  it  a 
mortal  blow.  Their  vast  frontiers  would  have  been  opened  to 
fugitives  from  slavery,  as  soon  as  the  shameful  compact  by  which 
those  neighboring  States  had  pledged  themselves  to  return  the 
fugitive  slave  had  been  torn  to  pieces,  with  the  very  Union  in 
whose  name  it  had  been  procured.  In  spite  of  all  artificial  bar- 
riers, a  double  contraband,  favoring  the  escape  of  the  slave  on  one 
hand,  would,  on  the  other,  have  carrried  into  the  South  those 
abolition  publications  so  much  dreaded  by  the  latter,  which  a 
secret  but  irresistible  propagandism  would  have  circulated  among 
enslaved  populations  whom  the  faintest  glimpse  of  liberty  was 
sufficient  to  excite.  This  inevitable  consequence  of  separation 
was  predicted  long  ago  by  the  sagacious  mind  of  De  Tocqueville, 
who  foresaw  the  day  when  slavery  would  bring  on  a  terrible 
crisis,  in  the  midst  of  which  it  would  disappear,  and  which  even 
seemed  to  him  destined  to  prove  fatal  to  one  of  the  two  races. 
He  had  therefore  counselled  the  men  of  the  South  to  remain  faith- 
ful to  the  Union  at  all  hazards,  because,  sustained  by  the  numer- 
ous white  population  of  the  North,  he  told  them,  they  would  be 
able  to  abolish  slavery  slowly  without  subverting  the  order  of 
things,  and  still  preserving  their  social  superiority ;  whereas,  if 
they  made  an  enemy  of  that  population,  the  latter  would  soon 
find  a  way  of  freeing  their  slaves  in  spite  of  them  and  against 
them. 

A  war  of  races,  which  the  defeat  of  the  South  has  rendered 


110  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

unnecessary,  would  have  been  the  certain  result  of  the  separation. 
Consequently,  the  leaders  of  the  slavery  party  needed  the  support 
of  the  people  of  the  North.  But  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  main- 
taining and  fortifying  slavery,  and  not  with  a  view  of  abolishing 
it  gradually,  that  they  asked  for  this  support.  There  were  two 
ways  of  obtaining  it :  either  by  reconstructing  the  Union  to  suit 
themselves ;  or,  by  dividing  the  North  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
would  no  longer  have  formed  a  compact  nation  by  their  side,  the 
slave  power  would  have  found  among  its  ruins  a  few  weak  States 
always  ready  to  sue  for  protection.  In  either  case,  the  servile 
institution  would  have  secured  its  necessary  ascendency  over  the 
w^hole  continent.  The  reconstruction  of  the  Union  for  their  own 
benefit  was  the  first  thought  of  Southern  politicians.  The  capital 
of  the  Union  was  surrounded  by  slave  States,  inhabited  by  slave- 
holders, and  the  Federal  laws  sanctioned  the  existence  of  the 
peculiar  institution  of  the  South  within  its  territory ;  they  made 
sure,  therefore,  of  its  possession,  and  once  assembled  in  the  Cap- 
itol, they  fully  hoped  that  the  necessity  of  forming  one  great 
nation,  that  fidelity  to  the  Federal  Constitution  itself,  would  rally 
around  them  the  majority  of  the  Northern  States.  The  Union 
would  thus  be  reconstituted  under  their  auspices,  and  New  Eng- 
land, that  focus  of  abolition,  would  perhaps  alone  be  excluded 
from  it,  and .  left  to  vegetate  in  obscure  mediocrity.  The  Mont- 
gomery Congress,  therefore,  in  drawing  up  the  new  Constitution 
of  the  Confederate  slave  States,  took  care  to  adopt,  purely  and 
simply,  the  old  compact  of  the  United  States,  with  two  im- 
portant modifications-^one,  to  justify  the  past,  the  other,  to 
guarantee  the  future.  The  first  recognized  the  right  of  seces- 
sion as  a  principle ;  the .  second  proclaimed  slavery  as  a  fund- 
amental institution  of  society.  Through  this  deceptive  resem- 
blance to  the  Federal  Constitution,  it  w^as  hoped  that  all  the  States 
of  the  old  Union  would  the  more  readily  group  themselves  around 
the  new  Confederacy.  In  order  to  effect  this,  it  was  necessary 
either  to  intimidate  them  by  a  bold  cowp  d'itat,  or  to  win  them 
back,  one  by  one,  by  dividing  them,  by  wearying  them  out,  and 
by  showing  them,  in  a  manner  calculated  to  impress  them,  the 
unanimous  determination  of  the  South.  We  have  shown  by  what 
violent  means  this  apparent  unanimity  of  the  Southern  people  waa 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  Ill 

procured;  there  was  no  more  respect  paid  to  the  doctrine  of  State 
rights^  the  very  foundation  of  the  Confederacy,  than  to  the  pri- 
vate rights  of  individuals ;  and,  at  a  later  period,  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  North  Carolina  to  get  rid  of  the  despotism  of  Mr. 
Davis  was  treated  as  treason.  If  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Union  was  not  practicable,  it  was  at  least  important  to  secure  the 
supremacy  of  the  new  Confederacy  by  surrounding  it  with  neigh- 
bors at  once  weak  and  divided.  In  order  to  accomplish  this,  war 
with  the  North  was  necessary,  because  a  peaceful  sej)aration  would 
have  left  her  united  under  the  old  Federal  Constitution.  All  the 
slave  States,  without  exception,  must  be  brought  into  the  Con- 
federacy; the  Mississippi  must  be  closed  against  the  Western 
States,  and  this  outlet,  so  necessary  for  their  produce,  should  only 
be  opened  in  exchange  for  an  alliance  which  would  have  reduced 
them  to  a  state  of  vassalage.  It  was  important,  above  all,  to 
make  the  Northern  merchants  feel  the  superiority  of  the  military 
power  of  the  Southern  States,  in  order  to  secure  to  the  latter  the 
role  of  arbitrators  among  their  neighbors,  ruined  by  war  and  dis- 
couraged by  defeat.  To  realize  this  project,  the  leaders  of  the 
slave  States  counted  chiefly  upon  the  influence  which  the  exclu- 
sive cultivation  of  cotton  gave  them.  They  were  convinced  that 
neither  America  nor  Eurojje  could  dispense  with  an  article  which 
they  alone  could  supply,  and  they  saw  in  it  a  guarantee  for  the 
maintenance  of  slavery,  of  which  it  was  the  fruit.  They  did 
not  believe  that  the  working  classes,  in  England  and  in  France, 
would  have  the  courage  to  undergo  the  severest  privations,  rather 
than  give  a  word  of  encouragement  to  the  cause  of  slavery,  and 
they  fully  expected  that  these  classes  would  compel  the  European 
governments  to  restore  cotton  to  their  looms,  by  intervening  in 
behalf  of  the  Confederates.  Forgetting  that  the  exports  of  the 
agricultural  products  of  the  North  exceeded  those  of  the  South, 
they  fancied  that  the  whole  world  was  dependent  upon  them,  and, 
in  their  presumptuous  language,  they  already  announced  the  ac- 
cession of  King  Cotton,  before  whom  the  sovereigns  and  the 
republics  of  the  two  worlds  would  have  to  bow. 

Such  were  the  views  of  the  ambitious  men  who  controlled  the 
policy  of  the  South.  At  the  opposite  extreme  were  the  aboli' 
tionists,  who,  with  the  foresight  and  the  logic  of  champions  of 


112  TEE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

positive  ideas,  felt,  like  them,  that  slavery  must  either  rule  or 
perish,  and  who,  resolved  to  contest  its  power,  were  not  afraid  of 
attacking  it  in  front.  Equally  enthusiastic  and  ardent  in  the 
struggle,  they  made  light  of  the  Constitution  in  their  harangues 
whenever  it  seemed  to  them  to  favor  the  propagation  of  slavery. 
Justly  convinced  of  the  rectitude  and  sacredness  of  their  cause, 
persuaded  also  that,  in  combating  the  servile  institution  without 
intermission  or  compromise,  they  were  saving  their  country  from 
shame  and  ruin,  they  entered  the  political  arena  with  the  courage, 
the  faith,  and  the  sternness  of  their  ancestors  the  Puritans.  So 
long  as  the  struggle  which  they  had  foreseen  was  deferred,  they 
did  not  number  many  adherents,  but  a  day  came  when  the  whole 
nation  rallied  around  the  abolition  flag,  which  they  had  carried 
so  loftily  and  firmly,  and  when  they  had  the  satisfaction  of  wit- 
nessing the  triumph  of  the  principles  of  truth  and  justice,  which 
they  had  never  sacrificed  to  the  exigencies  of  politics. 

Between  these  two  extreme  parties  there  were  the  masses  of 
the  people,  loyal  above  all  to  the  Union,  loyal  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  benefits  of  which  they  enjoyed.  These  masses  were 
divided  into  two  parties,  called  Democrats  and  Republicans, 
according  as  they  favored  or  opposed  the  slave  policy.  The 
Republicans,  who  were  in  the  majority  in  most  of  the  Northern 
States,  did  not  attack  slavery  directly  where  it  existed,  and, 
respecting  the  right  of  every  State  to  preserve  it,  they  confined 
themselves  to  the  task  of  restricting  its  extension.  The  Demo- 
cratic party  was  composed,  in  the  first  place,  of  a  large  portion 
of  the  Northern  population,  which  desired  to  maintain  the  Union 
by  making  concessions  to  the  servile  institution  and  by  tolerating 
its  development;  and  secondly,  of  the  immense  majority  of  the 
Southern  people  who  believed  in  their  ability  to  retain  the  guar- 
antees of  slavery  without  resorting  to  illegal  means  or  violating 
the  Constitution. 

The  alliance  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  Democrats 
and  the  extreme  slave  party  had  given,  at  all  the  general  elec- 
tions, an  important  majority  to  the  politicians  who  defended  the 
servile  institution  over  the  Republican  party,  which  was  solely 
sustained  by  a  small  fraction  of  abolitionists.  They  might  still 
have  possessed  such  majority  in  1860.     But,  as  we  have  already 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  US 

stated,  this  advantage  no  longer  satisfied  them ;  they  now  wanted 
to  establish  their  supremacy  in  a  way  not  to  be  disputed,  by  a 
bold  stroke  of  policy ;  and  they  preferred  threats  of  war,  and 
even  war  itself,  to  compromises  henceforth  insufficient.  They 
only  required  a  pretext  to  draw  after  them  their  fellow-citi- 
zens who  were  yet  faithful  to  the  Union.  We  shall  show  how 
they  sought  this  pretext  in  the  Presidential  elections  of  1860. 
They  had  long  used  the  entire  power  of  the  Federal  government 
for  the  protection  and  extension  of  slavery ;  they  had  introduced 
it  into  a  great  number  of  territories  which  had  been  acquired  by 
that  government  in  the  name  of  the  whole  community ;  sometimes 
protecting,  in  the  name  of  the  independence  of  the  new  States, 
those  which,  under  their  influence,  admitted  slavery ;  at  other 
times,  causing  the  central  power  to  trace  an  imaginary  line,  south 
of  which  all  the  territories  were  to  belong  to  the  servile  institu- 
tion. But  when  they  thought  of  separating  from  the  North,  or 
at  least  threatened  the  North  with  violent  separation,  they  denied 
that  the  Federal  government  had  any  right  to  interfere  in  the 
matter.  This  threat  was  a  powerful  political  argument,  and 
separation  seeming  to  be  the  last  resort  when  slavery  should  be  in 
danger,  a  constitutional  theory  was  needed  to  justify  it.  This 
was  found  in  the  dogma  of  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  States 
— a  doctrine  which  had  for  its  apostle,  between  the  years  1830 
and  1840,  Mr.  Calhoun,  the  foremost  statesman  of  South  Caro- 
lina, who  soon  came  to  be  considered  as  the  palladium  of  the 
peculiar  institutions  of  the  Southern  States.  It  is  sufficient  to 
sum  up  this  doctrine  in  a  few  words,  to  show  how  specious  and 
dangerous  it  was. 

The  object  of  the  Federal  compact,  between  the  colonies  that 
had  been  freed  by  the  war  of  independence,  was  to  protect  them 
against  the  divisions  which  weakened  them,  to  unite  them  into 
one  indestructible  group  or  cluster,  and  to  make  of  them  a  single 
nation,  while  leaving  them  a  local  independence  sufficient  to  pro- 
tect them  against  the  despotism  of  centralization.  Each  colony, 
in  adopting  this  compact,  made  a  perpetual  cession  of  a  portion  of 
its  sovereignty  in  favor  of  the  new  community.  The  rights  which 
M'Cre  thus  ceded  constituted  the  prerogatives  of  the  Federal  power. 
We  cannot  enumerate  them  here,  but  in  order  to  show  their  im- 

VoL.  I.— 8 


114  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

portancG;  it  Is  sufficient  to  mention  the  right  of  waging  war  and 
making  peace,  the  right  of  coining  money,  of  collecting  custom- 
house duties,  and  of  representing  the  commonwealth  in  foreign 
countries.  The  flag  was  national ;  civil  and  political  rights  were 
enjoyed  in  common  by  the  citizens  of  all  the  States ;  no  custom- 
house could  be  established  in  the  interior;  the  Federal  govern- 
ment had  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  certain  questions  of  general 
interest ;  it  was  the  sovereign  arbiter  both  between  States  and  be- 
tween such  States  and  private  individuals  aggrieved  by  them. 
Finally,  besides  its  limited  jurisdiction  in  the  States,  it  exercised 
a  sovereign  authority  over  the  Federal  possessions  and  the  new 
territories  acquired  by  the  Republic.  The  forts,  the  arsenals,  and 
the  District  of  Columbia,  which  contained  the  seat  of  government, 
had  been  ceded  to  it  with  full  right  of  property ;  the  immense 
uncultivated  regions  where  colonization  daily  extended  were  be- 
coming peopled  under  its  protection ;  and  it  alone  could  impart 
political  life  to  territories  sufficiently  civilized  to  claim  the  right 
of  adding  another  star  to  the  azure  field  of  the  national  flag.  The 
very  manner  in  which  the  national  power  was  constituted  proved 
that  it  represented  one  single  nation,  and  not  an  agglomeration  of 
independent  States.  This  power  was  composed  of  a  Senate  and  a 
House  of  Representatives,  invested  conjointly  with  political  and 
legislative  sovereignty  ;  of  a  President,  constituting  the  executive 
power ;  and  finally,  of  a  Supreme  Court,  whose  province  was  to 
enforce  the  superior  authority  of  the  national  laws,  and  to  pass 
judgment  as  a  court  of  final  appeal  upon  all  constitutional  ques- 
tions. With  the  exception  of  this  tribunal,  appointed  by  the 
President,  the  other  powers  (executive  and  legislative)  were  elec- 
tive. While  the  Senate  represented  in  a  proper  measure  the  au- 
tonomy of  the  States,  and  comprised  Avithin  its  organization  two 
members  sent  by  each  of  those  political  bodies,  whatever  their 
size  or  importance,  the  House  of  Representatives  was  the  direct 
product  of  popular  suffrage ;  the  entire  surface  of  the  Union  was 
divided  into  districts  equal  in  population,  each  of  which  elected 
one  member.  The  election  of  the  President,  although  nominally  of 
a  twofold  character,  was  also  essentially  national  and  proportioned 
to  the  population.  Each  State  designated  as  many  special  electors 
as  it  sent  Representatives  and  Senators  to  Congress,  and  these 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  115 

electors  assembled  in  an  electoral  college,  which  in  1860  was  com- 
posed of  three  hundred  and  three  members,  whose  only  mission 
was  to  vote  for  a  President.  With  the  exception  of  South  Caro- 
lina, which  left  the  right  of  their  selection  to  the  legislature,  these 
electors  were  chosen  by  popular  vote,  and  all  were  positively  in- 
structed to  vote  for  such  or  such  candidate  ;  the  result  of  the  vote 
for  President  was  thus  known  at  the  same  time  as  the  names  of 
the  electors  designated  by  the  ballot,  and  the  election  was  thus 
practically  reduced  to  a  single  point.  The  Federal  law  gave  to 
the  slave  States  an  unjustifiable  advantage  in  the  formation  of  the 
electoral  districts,  by  taking  into  account  the  servile  population, 
which  did  not  however  possess  any  political  rights,  and  by  count- 
ing five  negroes  as  equivalent  to  three  white  men.  This  advan- 
tage was  also  granted  to  them  in  the  Presidential  elections,  and 
they  were  more  than  once  indebted  to  it  for  successes  which  the 
free  States  only  accejoted  out  of  respect  for  the  Constitution. 
Strong  party  organizations,  which  are  indispensable  in  proportion 
as  the  institutions  are  more  democratic,  could  alone  carry  such  an 
election  into  effect,  and  give  to  the  choice  of  electors  the  character 
of  a  national  manifestation.  Accordingly,  each  party  held  free 
meetings  or  conventions,  composed  of  distinguished  men  selected 
in  all  the  States  by  permanent  party  committees.  It  was  in  these 
preliminary  assemblies  that  the  merits  of  the  various  candidates 
for  the  Presidency  were  discussed ;  and,  the  choice  once  made,  the 
whole  party,  owing  to  its  innumerable  ramifications  and  its  per- 
manent committees,  went  to  work  with  the  utmost  harmony  to  se- 
cure the  election  of  the  delegates  pledged  beforehand  to  vote  in 
favor  of  their  candidate. 

Such  was  the  entire  national  edifice — an  edifice  founded  on  Fed- 
eral institutions,  on  the  common  interest  which  they  guaranteed 
and  the  public  life  they  had  developed — which  the  doctrine  of 
State  sovereignty  was  seeking  to  undermine.  Those  who  had 
adopted  it  pretended  that  each  State  was  at  all  times  at  liberty  to 
resume  the  sovereignty  it  had  ceded  to  the  Commonwealth,  in  vir- 
tue of  the  Federal  compact ;  that  the  States  which  had  been  cre- 
ated since  the  Union  had  an  equal  right  to  do  the  same ;  and  that 
the  powerful  Republic,  the  unity  of  which  had  benefited  each  of 
them  in  turn,  was  thus  to  be  dismembered  at  the  first  sign  of  local 


116  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

opposition  that  the  constitutional  enactments  and  the  voice  of  the 
majority  might  encounter.  Such  a  theory,  logically  applied, 
would  lead  to  endless  divisions  and  to  the  destruction  of  all  na- 
tionality, for  no  confederation  could  have  existed  under  such  con- 
ditions ;  the  States  themselves  would  soon  have  been  broken  up 
by  the  claims  of  the  counties  of  which  they  were  composed  to 
separate  from  them ;  and  if  the  Northern  States  had  sanctioned 
this  theory  by  allowing  the  slaveholders  quietly  to  withdraw  from 
the  Union,  they  could  not  have  prevented  other  secessions  from 
taking  place  in  their  midst,  at  the  first  symptom  of  those  inevit- 
able differences  the  solution  of  which  had  hitherto  been  left  to  the 
popular  vote. 

We  have  already  shown  how  little  the  Southern  leaders 
thought  of  State  sovereignty  as  soon  as  they  had  organized  their 
new  Confederacy ;  but  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak  this  fatal 
doctrine  had  taken  a  strong  hold  of  the  public  mind  in  all  the 
slave  States,  and  it  dragged  the  most  loyal  citizens  into  the  rebel- 
lion, as  soon  as  the  usurping  legislatures  had  declared  in  favor  of 
separation. 

The  various  parties  went  to  work  early  in  the  spring  of  1860 
to  prepare  for  the  Presidential  elections  which  were  to  take  place 
in  November.  On  the  23d  of  April  all  the  delegates  of  the 
Democratic  party  met  in  convention  at  Charleston.  The  draw- 
ing up  of  a  programme  or  jplaiform — to  use  the  popular  term — - 
was  the  first  task  of  those  preliminary  assemblies,  after  which,  the 
choice  of  candidates  destined  to  carry  out  that  programme  was 
more  easy  and  had  a  more  definite  meaning ;  for  the  Americans 
have  acquired  the  habit  in  political  life  of  attaching  more  import- 
ance to  principles  than  to  persons.  The  Democratic  party  in  the 
free  States,  so  far  as  any  calculations  could  be  made,  was  nearly 
as  numerous  as  the  Republican  party ;  it  had  adopted  for  its  pro- 
gramme, under  the  name  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  the  right  of 
every  new  State  or  Territory  to  adopt  or  to  exclude  slavery.  Its 
alliance  with  the  Democrats  of  the  South  had  already  triumphed 
in  many  elections ;  this  alliance  had  only  to  be  continued  to  secure 
the  nomination  of  Mr.  Doug-las,  the  recomized  chief  of  the  North- 
ern  Democrats.  But  the  slaveholders  of  the  South,  as  it  has  already 
been  stated,  desired  to  push  matters  to  extremes.     They  demanded 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  117 

a  programme  implying  the  right  of  secession,  and  imposing  upon 
the  Federal  government  the  official  recognition  of  slavery  as  a 
national  institution.  This  was  to  render  their  union  with  the  ma- 
jority of  their  former  allies  impossible.  In  consequence  of  these 
conflicting  pretensions,  the  convention  accomplished  nothing,  and 
from  that  moment  the  success  of  the  Republican  candidate  ap- 
peared certain.  Those  who  had  brought  about  this  result  were 
not  afraid  of  the  consequences ;  they  preferred  it  to  the  surrender 
of  the  least  portion  of  their  imperious  programme.  They  had 
thrown  off  the  mask.  In  the  mean  time,  the  party  of  concilia- 
tion which  never  fails  to  come  to  the  surface  during  a  great  polit- 
ical crisis — but  whose  good  intentions  are  almost  always  power- 
less, because  it  seeks  to  remedy  an  evil  by  ignoring  it — had  been 
long  in  existence  under  the  name  of  the  Whig  party.  It  had 
thought  to  be  able  to  remove  the  evil  by  adopting  a  ])rogramme 
full  of  protestations  in  favor  of  the  Constittition,  in  which  slavery 
was  not  even  mentioned ;  it  held  a  convention  in  Baltimore  on 
the  9th  of  May,  and  selected  Mr.  Bell  as  its  candidate.  A  few 
days  after,  ]\Iay  16th,  the  Republican  convention  which  assembled 
ajt  Chicago  adopted  for  its  platform  the  maintenance  of  the  Union, 
a  denial  of  the  right  of  secession,  a  guarantee  of  the  principle  of 
free  labor  as  the  basis  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  restriction  of 
slavery  to  the  States  or  Territories  where  it  already  existed.  The 
care  of  presenting  this  platform  to  the  voters  of  the  country — the 
only  one  honest,  just,  and  Avorthy  of  the  great  Republic — was  en- 
trusted on  the  19th  to  INIr.  Lincoln,  already  known  for  his  up- 
rightness, his  legal  acquirements,  and  his  political  experience. 

After  several  attempts  at  reconciliation  between  the  various 
fractions  of  the  Democratic  party,  its  division  became  final.  The 
Charleston  convention  was  followed  by  two  hostile  conventions 
sitting  at  the  same  time  in  Baltimore — one  of  which,  on  the  21st 
of  June,  selected  Mr.  Douglas  as  its  candidate,  and  the  other,  on 
the  23d,  Mr.  Brecken ridge.  Tlie  latter,  who  was  at  that  time 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  represented  the  ultra  slave 
policy  of  the  South. 

On  the  6th  of  November,  4,680,180  American  citizens  elected 
delegates :  the  Presidential  electors  pledged  to  vote  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln received  1,866,452  votes;  those  representing  the  two  frac- 


118  THE  CIVIL   WAR  AY  AMERICA. 

tions  of  the  Democratic  party,  personified  by  Douglas  and  Breck- 
enridge,  received,  respectively,  1,375,144  and  847,933  votes ;  and 
the  Whig  party,  personified  by  Bell,  590,631  votes.  The  Eepub- 
lican  candidate  had  only  a  relative  majority,  but  it  was  consider- 
able ;  and,  thanks  to  the  machinery  of  the  double  vote,  this  ma- 
jority was  made  absolute  in  the  electoral  college.  He  was  elected 
by  one  hundred  and  eighty  votes,  whilst  his  three  competitors, 
although  strengthened  by  the  eight  electors  from  South  Carolina, 
jnly  received  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  votes  between  them. 

The  Republican  party  had  carried  the  day ;  the  Federal  execu- 
tive power,  which  was  to  assume  its  functions  on  the  4th  of 
March  of  the  following  year,  had  received  the  nation's  mandate 
to  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery;  but  it  was  also  pledged  to 
make  no  attempts  against  that  institution  where  it  already  existed. 
The  two  fractions  of  the  Democratic  party  and  the  Whigs,  being 
in  the  majority  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  had  it  always  in  their 
power  to  unite  in  opposing  constitutionally  any  infringements 
that  might  be  attempted  against  what  the  South  considered  as  her 
rights. 

The  leaders  of  the  slaveholding  States,  who  had  rejected  every 
compromise  with  their  partisans  of  the  North,  were  fully  deter- 
mined not  to  rest  satisfied  with  this  guarantee.  They  had  loudly 
proclaimed  the  right  of  secession  ;  they  had  announced  their  inten- 
tion to  avail  themselves  of  that  right  if  the  entire  nation  did  not 
submit  to  their  demands ;  and  they  had  prepared  the  Southern 
people,  by  their  violent  attacks  upon  the  Republican  candidate, 
whom  they  styled  an  abolitionist,  to  repudiate  his  authority  and 
to  set  aside  the  national  verdict.  These  people  were  not  to  be 
allowed  time  for  reflection,  lest  love  for  the  Union  should  resume 
its  empire  over  them.  It  was  necessary  to  stir  uj)  the  timid  a.nd 
to  persuade  the  wavering,  either  by  fair  means  or  by  force ;  it 
was  important,  above  all,  to  take  advantage  of  the  hour  Avhen 
the  North  was  powerless  and  the  Federal  authority  undecided,  in 
order  that  secession  might  become  an  accomplished  fact  on  the 
day  when  honest  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  installed  into  power. 
Consequently,  the  signal  of  separation  was  given  several  months 
in  advance  of  his  inauguration. 

The  joy  of  those  who  had  been  anxious  for  the  struggle  mani- 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  119 

fested  itself  tliroughout  the  South  on  the  receipt  of  the  news  of 
the  election,  while  the  llepublicans,  although  happy  in  their  suc- 
cess, surveyed  the  future  of  the  republic  with  feelings  of  uneasi- 
ness. The  Democrats  of  the  North,  forsaken  by  their  allies, 
could  not  believe  these  allies  capable  of  tearing  the  Constitution 
asunder,  and  the  border  States,  equally  attached  to  the  Union 
and  to  slavery,  already  foresaw  that  if  the  war  broke  out  it  would 
be  waged  on  their  own  soil  and  at  their  expense. 

Not  a  moment  was  lost  in  giving  the  secession  movement  a 
decisive  impulse.  The  popular  mind  was  everywhere  excited  by 
inflammatory  speeches.  Some  resistance  was,  however,  met  with ; 
Mr.  Stephens,  who  was  soon  to  become  the  Vice-President  of  the 
Confederacy,  was  then  opposed  to  separation ;  but  his  protests 
against  that  measure  had  no  effect,  inasmuch  as  they  were  accom- 
panied by  reservations  in  favor  of  State  sovereignty,  and  because 
the  defenders  of  the  Union  in  the  South  declared  themselves 
ready  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  their  own  States  if  they  should 
withdraw  from  it.  The  legislatures  of  the  cotton  States  were 
immediately  assembled  to  consider  the  situation  and  issue  calls 
for  conventions  to  proclaim  the  act  of  secession.  Without  even 
waiting  for  this  proclamation,  the  national  authority  was  openly 
set  aside,  and  from  the  day  following  the  election  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, the  judge  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  in 
Charleston,  devoted  to  Southern  interests,  refused  to  take  his  seat 
on  the  Bench.  Finally,  the  principal  leaders  of  the  movement 
met  at  Milledgeville  to  consult  upon  the  subject  of  separation, 
and  the  military  measures  required  to  ensure  success. 

One  month  after  the  election — the  3d  of  December — the  Fed- 
eral Congress  met  in  its  turn.  The  President's  message  set  forth 
the  uncertainties  and  the  weakness  of  the  Washino-ton  govern- 
ment.  Elected  by  the  coalition  of  Democrats,  Mr.  Buchanan 
did  not  dare  to  break  with  his  former  allies.  He  affected  to  see 
in  the  choice  of  his  successor  an  act  of  aggression  against  them, 
and  sought  in  vain  to  find  means  of  conciliation.  He  did  not 
admit  the  possibility  of  secession.  He  condemned  it,  and  yet  did 
not  consider  himself  justified  in  taking  any  steps  for  its  repres- 
sion. The  partisans  of  the  South  were  in  the  majority  in  his 
cabinet,  and    filled  the  greatest   portion    of  the  Federal   offices. 


120  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

They  had  taken  advantage  of  this  to  facilitate,  in  a  thousand 
ways,  the  designs  of  their  accomplices,  and  were  throwing  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  every  measure  proposed  by  those  of  tlieir 
colleagues  who  were  devoted  to  the  Union.  One  of  them,  Mr. 
Floyd,  Secretary  of  War,  had  sold  in  the  Southern  markets  a 
portion  of  the  arms  belonging  to  the  nation,  and  had  forwarded 
nearly  all  the  remainder  to  the  arsenals  situated  on  the  soil  of 
the  States  ready  for  insurrection.  General  Scott,  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Federal  array,  had  asked  in  vain  before  the  election 
that  some  measures  might  be  adopted  to  place  the  army  once 
more  on  a  respectable  footing.  Instead  of  this,  it  had  been  pur- 
posely weakened  and  nearly  annihilated.  The  Federal  govern- 
ment possessed  a  great  number  of  fortifications  along  the  coast — ■ 
most  of  them  constructed  upon  the  plans  of  the  French  general 
Bernard — which  commanded  the  ports  and  the  most  important 
positions  to  be  defended  in  case  of  war.  These  forts  were  national 
property.  The  most  important  were  Fort  Monroe  in  Virginia, 
on  the  borders  of  the  Chesapeake ;  Fort  Macon  in  North  Caro- 
lina ;  Forts  Moultrie  and  Sumter  in  the  bay  of  Charleston,  South 
Carolina ;  Fort  Pulaski  in  Georgia,  near  Savannah ;  Forts  Key 
West  and  Garden  Key  on  two  small  islands  at  the  extremity  of 
Florida;  Forts  McRae  and  Pickens  at  the  entrance  of  the  bay 
of  Pensacola  in  the  same  State;  Forts  Morgan  and  Gaines  in 
front  of  Mobile,  in  Alabama ;  and  Forts  Jackson  and  St.  Philip 
on  the  Mississippi,  below  New  Orleans.  The  garrisons  of  these 
forts  had  been  so  much  reduced  that  they  were  all  liable  to  be 
captured  by  a  sudden  attack. 

The  excitement  in  Congress  was  great.  With  the  exception  of 
the  secession  leaders,  all  parties  were  working  sincerely  to  devise 
means  for  maintaining  the  Union.  Committees  were  appointed 
for  that  purpose.  The  compromise  measure  which  received  the 
most  serious  consideration,  and  which  seemed  at  one  time  to  be 
favored  by  the  majority  of  the  conciliation  party,  was  proj  osed 
by  a  venerable  Senator  from  Kentucky — Mr.  Crittenden.  He 
wanted  to  divide  the  Republic  by  a  line  drawn  from  east  to  west 
as  far  as  the  Pacific,  which  would  secure  to  the  slave  interest  all 
the  Territories  situated  south  of  thirty-six  and  a  half  degrees 
north.    But  the  time  for  compromises  had  passed ;  the  Republicans 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  121 

could  not  accept  them,  and  those  who  desired  separation  were  fully 
determined  to  reject  them. 

The  entire  South  was  already  in  motion ;  sj)ecial  sessions  of 
legislatures  had  assembled  and  called  for  conventions.  Other 
conventions,  held  in  the  border  States  of  both  North  and  South, 
appealed  in  vain  for  conciliatory  measures.  In  the  North,  im- 
mense meetings  declared  themselves  ready  to  support  the  Union 
and  the  government  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  about  to  form.  Con- 
gress, acting  under  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  authorized  the 
issue  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  in  Treasury  bonds,  to  meet  the 
most  urgent  national  expenses,  but  the  President  refused  to  take 
any  steps  to  sustain  the  Federal  authority,  and  the  loyal  members 
of  his  cabinet — his  Secretary  of  State,  General  Cass,  among  others 
— withdrew,  because  they  would  have  no  connection  with  a  gov- 
ernment which  delivered  up  the  country  to  its  enemies. 

South  Carolina  was  the  first  to  set  up  openly  the  standard  of 
rebellion,  and  on  the  20th  of  December  her  convention  passed  an 
ordinance  of  secession,  declaring  the  Union  severed,  and  demand- 
ing at  the  same  time  all  the  Federal  property  situated  on  its  S(»il. 
This  demand  was  a  declaration  of  open  war,  unless  the  President,  L y 
complying  with  it,  should  himself  sanction  the  right  of  separation. 
The  signal  was  given,  and  preparations  were  made  in  the  other 
cotton  States  to  follow  the  example  of  South  Carolina.  How- 
ever, while  the  most  zealous  partisans  were  in  favor  of  proclaiming 
the  secession  of  every  State  at  once,  moderate  j^eople,  with  a  view 
of  delaying  action,  insisted  that,  before  proceeding  farther,  all  the 
Southern  States  should  come  to  an  understanding  in  order  to  act 
in  concert.  But  the  co-operationists,  as  they  were  called,  were 
forcibly  carried  along  by  the  revolutionary  current.  Moreover, 
the  instigators  of  the  rebellion  understood  each  other  but  too  well. 
Each  man  had  his  part  laid  out.  Some,  delegated  by  their  own 
States,  constantly  visited  the  neighboring  States  in  order  to  secui'e 
that  unanimity  to  the  movement  which  was  to  constitute  its 
strength ;  others  were  endeavoring  to  win  over  the  powerful  bor- 
der States,  such  as  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  as  well  as  North 
Carolina  and  Tennessee,  which  stood  aghast,  terrified  at  the  ap- 
proach of  the  crisis  brought  on  by  their  associates ;  some,  again, 
were  even  pleading  their  cause  in  the  North,  in  the  hope  of  re- 


122  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

CTuiting  partisans  among  those  Democrats  whom  they  had  for- 
saken at  the  last  election ;  while  others  kept  their  seats  in  Con- 
gress in  order  to  be  able  to  paralyze  its  action,  forming,  at  the 
same  time,  a  centre  whence  they  issued  directions  to  their  friends 
in  the  South  to  complete  the  dismemberment  of  the  Republic. 
Jefferson  Davis  himself  continued  to  take  part  in  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  Senate,  and  four  days  after  the  insurrection  of  South 
Carolina,  he  boldly  presented  the  programme  of  his  party — a 
programme  which  must  be  adopted  in  full  in  order  to  bring 
back  the  South  into  the  Union — the  basis  of  which  was  a  consti- 
tutional amendment  sanctioning  for  all  time  the  recognition  of 
slavery. 

South  Carolina  did  not  wait  for  the  reply  of  the  President  to 
her  demands  as  to  the  possession  of  the  Federal  property.  Mr. 
Buchanan  gave  the  rebels  indirect  encouragement  by  his  vacillat- 
ing course.  The  Charleston  arsenal  was  already  in  the  possession 
of  the  secessionist  authorities  of  the  city ;  the  commandant  of  the 
forts,  which  guarded  the  entrance  of  the  port,  fully  expected  to  see 
their  demands  backed  by  a  sufficient  force  of  militia  to  render  all 
resistance  impossible.  Major  Anderson  had  only  eighty  soldiers 
to  garrison  three  forts  intended  for  an  armament  of  more  than  one 
hundred  guns.  Fort  Moultrie  and  Castle  Pinckney  were  situated 
on  the  main  land ;  Sumter,  the  most  important  of  the  three,  was 
an  enormous  mass  of  masonry  erected  upon  a  small  island  in  the 
centre  of  the  bay.  It  was  dismantled  in  1860,  and  Anderson 
with  his  little  band  only  occupied  Moultrie,  which  he  had  labored 
hard  to  put  in  a  state  of  defence.  Well  aware  that  he  would  not 
be  able  to  defend  himself  with  his  little  garrison,  encumbered  as 
it  was  with  women  and  children,  the  Charleston  authorities  as- 
sured the  President  that  they  would  let  him  alone  for  the  time, 
provided  no  reinforcements  Avere  sent  to  him.  The  Secretary  of 
War,  feigning  to  accept  these  hypocritical  promises  from  men  with 
whom  he  was  secretly  in  accord,  gave  Anderson  no  instructions, 
intending  thereby  to  make  him  an  easy  prey  for  his  friends.  But 
this  officer  had  the  courage — a  rare  thing  in  revolutionary  times 
— to  take  the  responsibility  of  a  step  which  was  to  ensure  his 
safety,  and  which  his  superiors  had  not  dared  to  suggest.  On  the 
26th  of  December,  during  the  darkness  of  the  nigtt,  he  evacuated 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  123 

Fort  Moultrie  and  occupied  Fort  Sumter  with  all  bis  people. 
Rage  and  vexation  rose  to  a  high  pitch  in  Charleston  when,  on  the 
morning  of  the  27th,  the  Federal  flag  was  seen  hoisted  over  the 
walls  of  Sumter.  The  rebel  authorities  began  hy  taking  posses- 
sion of  the  abandoned  forts;  great  military  preparations  were 
ordered;  the  militia  redoubled  their  activity,  and  the  arms  taken 
from  the  arsenal  were  distributed  among  them ;  the  guns  of  Moul- 
trie were  turned  ag-ainst  the  fort  which  sheltered  the  little  Federal 
garrison,  and  new  batteries  were  begun  on  the  beach  to  support 
their  fire ;  finally,  the  commissioners  appointed  by  South  Carolina 
were  instructed  to  again  demand  of  the  President  the  restoration 
of  the  fort,  which  was  no  longer  in  danger  of  a  sudden  attack. 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  Buchanan's  weakness,  it  was  too  much  to 
exact  from  him  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter ;  public  opinion  in 
the  North  was  unanimous  in  reminding  him  that  it  was  his  duty 
to  protect  the  Federal  property.  He  refused  to  comply  with  the 
demands  of  the  commissioners,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his  Sec- 
retary of  War,  who,  thinking  that  he  had  done  enough  in  that 
capacity  for  the  cause  of  the  South,  availed  himself  of  this  dis- 
agreement to  tender  his  resignation,  on  the  31st  of  December. 

The  year  1861  began  under  the  gloomiest  auspices.  South 
Carolina  had  shown  that  secession  was  not  an  idle  threat.  Six  of 
the  Southern  States  were  preparing  to  follow  her  example ;  the 
others,  while  deploring  the  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  declared 
themselves  opposed  to  any  energetic  measures  against  the  seceders. 
The  North — divided  into  two  parties,  one  of  which  looked  upon 
the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  victory,  the  other  as  a  defeat — 
could  not  realize  the  magnitude  of  the  danger,  and  was  wasting 
precious  time  in  idle  declarations  of  attachment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  President,  sincere  but  weak,  oscillating  between  his 
public  duties  and  party  obligations,  surrounded  by  traitors  to  the 
Republic,  found  himself  isolated,  forsaken  by  those  who  might 
liave  given  him  judicious  advice,  and  reduced  to  the  most  de- 
plorable helplessness. 

He  could  not,  however,  bear  the  arrogance  of  the  Carolina  com- 
missioners, and  on  the  1st  of  January  he  broke  off  all  intercourse 
with  them.  The  leaders  of  the  slave  party  had  only  M-aited  for 
this  explosion  to  cause  the  rebellion  to  take  another  step.     Those 


124  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

who  were  in  Washington  formed  a  cabal,  and  on  the  5th  of  Jan- 
uary they  advised  their  associates  in  the  various  Southern  States 
to  follow  the  example  of  South  Carolina,  and  to  proclaim  the  act 
of  separation  without  delay.  These  States  had  taken  in  advance 
all  precautions  against  the  slightest  opposition  that  might  be 
offered  on  the  part  of  the  President ;  they  had  already  seized  all 
the  Federal  arsenals  within  their  reach,  and  especially  the  forts 
which  might  be  turned  against  them  in  the  coming  struggle.  On 
the  3d  of  January  the  militia  of  Alabama  occupied  the  Mount 
Yernon  arsenal,  and,  without  striking  a  blow,  walked  into  Forts 
Morgan  and  Gaines,  which  their  respective  garrisons  surrendered 
to  them ;  on  the  same  day,  the  Georgians  took  possession  of  Forts 
Pulaski  and  Jackson,  and  on  the  6th  the  arsenals  of  Fayetteville 
and  Chattahoochee  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  authorities  of  North 
Carolina  and  Florida. 

A  few  militia  troops  of  the  latter  State  assembled  at  Pensa- 
cola ;  the  commandant  of  the  arsenal  allowed  himself  to  be  cap- 
tured by  them  on  the  12th,  but  an  energetic  officer.  Lieutenant 
Slemmer,  was  in  command  of  Forts  McRae  and  Pickens.  Not 
being  able  to  defend  both  with  a  handful  of  men,  he  followed  the 
example  of  Anderson,  eluded  the  vigilance  of  the  enemy  who  was 
watching  him,  and  abandoned  the  first  to  retire  into  the  second, 
which  was  thus  wrested  for  ever  from  the  hands  of  the  Confed- 
erates. On  the  same  day  Forts  Jackson  and  St.  Philip  on  the 
Mississippi  were  delivered  up  to  the  authorities  of  Louisiana, 
and  on  the  following  day  they  took  possession  of  the  arsenal  at 
Baton  Eouge.  On  the  18th,  in  order  to  close  the  Upper  Mis- 
sissippi against  any  possible  attacks  from  the  north,  the  seceders 
began  erecting  around  Vicksburg  the  first  of  those  batteries 
which  were  destined  to  keep  the  Federal  armies  so  long  in 
check,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  and  on  the  same  day,  an  attempt 
by  the  Floridians  to  capture  Fort  Jefferson  at  Garden  Key  was 
frustrated  by  the  timely  arrival  of  reinforcements  brought  by 
Captain  Meigs.  We  shall  see  this  officer  at  a  subsequent  perijod 
occupying  at  Washington  the  important  post  of  quartermaster- 
general  of  the  army. 

The  secission  excitement  had  even  invaded  Maryland,  where 
the  partisans  of  the  South,  although  possibly  in  the  minority, 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  125 

were  very  active  in  organizing  regiments  of  volunteers  M'ith  the 
avowed  intention  of  menacing  Washington,  and  of  separating  the 
Federal  capital  from  the  North.  While  the  insurrection  was  thus 
progressing,  the  conventions  which  had  been  called  together 
throughout  the  South  were  already  assembled  or  preparing  to 
meet ;  in  the  Northern  States  the  legislatures  were  all  in  session, 
and  the  Federal  Congress  continued  to  be  the  scene  of  the  most 
exciting  discussions.  All  these  assemblies  imparted  a  feverish 
activity  to  political  life  during  the  month  of  January,  and  dis- 
tinctly demonstrated  the  position  of  the  different  parties  that  were 
contending  for  the  possession  of  the  Republic. 

The  word  of  command  issued  by  the  committee  at  Washington 
was  promptly  obeyed.  Secession  was  proclaimed  by  the  several 
conventions — in  Mississippi  on  the  9th  of  January,  in  Florida  on 
the  10th,  in  Alabama  on  the  11th,  in  Georgia  on  the  19th,  and  in 
Louisiana  on  the  26th.  The  secession  intriguers  had  not  achieved 
such  an  easy  success  in  Texas,  where  they  encountered  a  strong 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  men  who  surrounded  Governor 
Houston,  the  real  founder  of  that  State.  Nevertheless,  even 
there,  their  machinations  succeeded  in  the  end,  thanks  to  a  for- 
midable association  which  inspired  and  directed  them.  The 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  constituted  throughout  the  South  a 
vast  secret  society,  whose  object  was  to  extend  the  confederacy  of 
slave  States  in  a  circle  all  around  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  to 
found  a  great  power  comprising,  besides  the  cotton  States,  the 
greatest  portion  of  Mexico  and  the  Antilles.  This  devoted  and 
unscrupulous  organization  was  one  of  the  principal  instruments 
used  by  Southern  intriguers.  It  had  spread  especially  all  over 
Texas.  By  means  of  intimidation  it  overcame  the  resistance  of 
the  Unionists,  and  on  the  1st  of  February  a  convention,  irregularly 
organized,  drew  that  State  into  the  rebellion. 

In  the  mean  time,  South  Carolina,  always  anxious  to  be  in  ad- 
vance of  the  other  States,  had  not  waited  for  their  co-operation  to 
consummate  the  rebellion  by  an  overt  act  of  hostility.  On  the 
9th  of  January  a  merchant  vessel,  freighted  by  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment with  provisions  for  Fort  Sumter,  appeared  in  Charles- 
ton harbor.  The  new  batteries  that  had  been  erected  on  the  beach 
fired  into  her  and  obliged  her  to  put  back.     Americans  had  fired 


126  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

for  tlie  first  time  upon  the  Federal  flag;  the  civil  war  had 
commenced. 

Such  acts  could  not  fail  to  dispel  any  doubt  that  might  still 
exist  as  to  the  intentions  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  South. 
The  States  in  wliich  the  Republican  party  was  in  the  ascendant, 
those  under  Democratic  rule,  the  border  slave  States,  and  the 
Federal  government,  while  perfectly  unanimous  in  condemning 
these  provocations,  took  very  different  ways  of  resenting  the 
outrage. 

The  first,  on  receiving  the  news  of  the  rupture  between  the 
President  and  the  commissioners  from  South  Carolina,  emphat- 
ically declared  at  their  meetings,  through  the  medium  of  their 
leading  statesmen,  in  favor  of  maintaining  the  Union,  whatever 
the  cost  might  be.  But  at  the  same  time,  in  order  to  prove  to 
the  South  how  little  they  had  thought  of  making  war  upon  her, 
they  referred  to  the  laws  they  had  passed  for  the  surrender  of 
fugitive  slaves — laws  just  in  themselves,  but  unfortunately  un- 
constitutional. The  most  zealous  among  them — who  were  also 
the  most  clear-sighted — followed  the  example  of  Massachusetts, 
who,  since  the  3d  of  January,  had  been  busy  in  making  military 
preparations.  The  outrage  committed  at  Charleston  against  the 
national  flag  had  caused  a  profound  sensation  throughout  the 
great  States  of  the  West.  The  fate  of  the  Union  was  in  their 
hands ;  if  they  had  hesitated  to  defend  it,  the  Union  was  lost. 
The  Southern  leaders  counted  upon  this  hesitation,  and  in  order 
to  lead  them  to  adopt  their  views,  they  announced  that  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Mississippi — the  necessary  outlet  for  all  Western 
produce — should  be  for  ever  free  from  all  obstructions.  But  these 
precautionary  measures  had  no  effect ;  those  States  declared  against 
them  with  a  degree  of  unanimity  and  energy  which  foreshadowed 
from  that  moment  the  immense  sacrifices  they  would  make  for 
the  Federal  cause. 

Nor  were  the  efforts  of  the  seceders  more  successful  in  shaking 
the  loyalty  of  those  States  where  the  Democrats  were  in  the  ma- 
jority. The  mayor  of  New  York,  Mr.  Wood — ^whf»  was  indebted 
for  his  position  to  intrigues  but  little  creditable  to  that  great 
city — tried  in  vain  to  seduce  her  from  her  allegiance  to  the 
Ur'on,  by  holding  out  the  flattering  prospect  of  making  her  a 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIC  iVS.  127 

free  city.  Tlie  legislature  of  that  State — the  most  powerful  in 
the  Republic — although  in  favor  of  an  attempt  at  impossible  con- 
ciliation, declared,  on  the  11th  of  January,  its  unalterable  attach- 
ment to  the  Union.  That  of  Pennsylvania  having  followed  its 
example  on  the  24th,  all  danger  of  secession  in  the  North  finally 
disappeared.  Delaware,  who  preserved  in  her  constitution  the 
principle  of  slavery,  although  slavery  itself  was  virtually  abol- 
ished in  her  territory,,  repelled  the  Southern  emissaries ;  and  the 
legislature  of  New  Jersey,  while  recommending  the  adoption  of 
Mr.  Crittenden's  compromise  measure,  declined  to  separate  from 
her  neighbors  who  were  faithful  to  the  Constitution. 

The  slave  States  known  by  the  name  of  border  States  were  the 
theatre  of  bitter  contests  between  the  two  hostile  parties.  But 
their  old  attachment  to  the  Constitution  got  also  the  better  of 
their  sympathies  for  their  neighbors  engaged  in  rebellion.  Gov- 
ernor Hicks  of  Maryland  resisted  every  attempt  to  drag  that 
State  into  secession.  The  legislature  of  Kentucky  and  the  elec- 
toral colleges  of  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina  refused  to  call  a 
convention  at  the  bidding  of  the  seceders,  and  the  voters  of  Vir- 
ginia sent  to  the  convention  of  that  State  a  majority  of  delegates 
favorable  to  the  Union.  These  demonstrations,  however,  only 
occasioned  a  little  delay,  obtained  by  the  partisans  of  the  Federal 
authority,  which  did  not  prove  of  essential  service  to  their  cause. 
In  fact,  those  States  simply  offered  their  mediation,  but  their 
offers,  although  sincere  for  tlie  most  part,  were  only  a  disguised 
support  to  the  pretensions  of  the  slaveholders ;  their  professions 
of  fidelity  to  the  Constitution  lost  all  their  value  in  consequence 
of  the  restrictions  which  surrounded  them;  for,  while  acknow- 
ledging that  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  was  no  valid  cause  for  sepa- 
ration, and  while  submitting  to  his  authority  themselves,  tliey 
denied  the  President's  right  to  compel  the  rebel  States  to  submit 
to  it  likewise.  They  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  State  sover- 
eignty, and  thus  pursued  a  course  which  irresistibly  led  them 
to  make  common  cause  with  the  insurrection  on  the  day  when 
the  war  should  break  out. 

Congress  was  the  arena  where  the  antagonistic  passions  which 
developed  themselves  on  every  side  struggled  for  the  mastery,  and 
attempts  at  conciliation  were  only  brought  forward  to  be  defeated 


128  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

through  the  absolute  pretensions  of  the  Southern  leaders.  The 
latter  vacated  their  seats  as  the  States  which  they  represented 
proclaimed  the  act  of  separation ;  thus  carrying  out  the  policy 
through  which  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  effected ;  and 
by  abandoning  in  Congress,  as  they  had  done  in  the  electoral  col- 
leges, their  former  allies,  the  Democrats,  who  were  still  working 
to  eifect  compromises,  they  secured  a  majority  for  the  Republi- 
cans, who  had  bravely  resolved  not  to  make  any  further  con- 
cessions. The  latter  rejected  Mr.  Crittenden's  compromise,  for 
the  first  time,  on  the  9th  of  January,  declaring  that  the  Constitu- 
tion should  be  maintained  as  it  was ;  thus  answering  the  argu- 
ments of  the  instigators  of  the  rebellion,  who,  even  in  the  Fed- 
eral legislature,  attacked  that  Constitution  in  virtue  of  which  they 
held  their  seats  in  Congress. 

The  mission  of  the  South  Carolina  delegates  had,  somewhat 
late  it  is  true,  recalled  President  Buchanan  to  a  sense  of  his  pub- 
lic duties.  On  the  8th  of  January  he  sent  a  message  to  Congress 
in  which  he  announced  his  firm  determination  to  perform  them. 
A  few  days  before — the  5th  of  January — he  resolved  to  revictual 
Fort  Sumter.  But  instead  of  openly  sending  some  vessels  of 
war,  he  had  despatched  a  simple  transport-ship,  which,  as  Ave 
have  stated,  was  stopped  by  a  few  cannon-shots  at  the  entrance 
of  the  bay  of  Charleston.  Always  tardy  in  his  action,  on  the 
18  th  he  dismissed  General  Twiggs,  who,  on  the  16  th,  had  sur- 
rendered the  troops  under  his  command  to  the  insurgents  of 
Texas ;  and  on  the  22d  he  caused  the  seizure  of  a  cargo  of  arms 
in  New  York,  intended  for  the  militia  of  the  South,  which  had 
already  received  vast  supplies  through  the  same  channel. 

Such  was  the  situation  at  the  beginning  of  February.  In 
response  to  an  invitation  from  Virginia,  a  Peace  Congress  com- 
posed of  official  delegates  from  twenty-one  States  assembled  at 
Washington  on  the  4th,  under  the  direction  of  a  former  President 
of  the  republic,  Mr.  Tyler.  This  assembly  would  have  exercised 
a  large  influence,  if  :.onciliation  had  been  practicable ;  but  a  sim- 
ple coincidence  of  dates  demonstrated,  by  a  striking  contrast,  the 
uselessness  of  its  efforts.  On  the  very  day  when  it  began  its 
labors,  the  delegates  from  the  rebel  States  were  assembling  at 
Montgomery  to  seal  their  alliance  by  the  formation  of  a  new 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  129 

Confederacy.  "While  the  pacificators  were  wasting  time  iu  use- 
less speeches,  the  secession  leaders  were  acting  and  preparing  for 
the  struo'o-le. 

On  the  8th  of  February  the  assembly  at  Montgomery  decreed 
the  Constitution  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  on  the  following 
day,  the  man  who,  through  his  talents  and  audacity,  had  been  the 
soul  of  secession,  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  was  chosen  President.  In 
order  to  conciliate  those  who  still  cherished  a  lingering  attachment 
to  the  Union,  the  Vice-Presidency  was  conferred  upon  their  chief, 
Mr.  Stephens  of  Georgia,  who,  after  fighting  secession,  had  fol- 
lowed the  fortunes  of  his  State.  The  first  bond  which  was  to 
unite  all  the  insurgents  of  the  South  together  was  thus  formed. 
These  provisional  appointments,  limited  to  one  year,  were  made 
by  the  delegates  without  any  intervention  of  the  popular  vote. 
The  Southern  leaders  had  deemed  it  more  prudent  thus  to  dis- 
pose of  the  principal  offices  without  consulting  those  whom  they 
l^recipitated  into  civil  war,  lest  a  speedy  repentance  among  some, 
and  a  desire  to  leave  at  least  the  door  of  conciliation  open  among 
a  large  class  of  the  community,  might  interpose  obstacles  to  their 
designs.  They  at  once  invested  their  new  President  with  the 
powers  which  enabled  him  to  give  a  vigorous  and  unique  impulse 
to  the  secession  movement,  and  entrusted  him,  as  has  already 
been  shown,  with  the  supreme  control  of  military  affairs  and  all 
the  necessary  means  for  organizing  an  army. 

Mr.  Davis  was  installed  into  office  on  the  18th  of  February,  and 
set  to  work  without  being  troubled  by  the  empty  protests  of  Mr. 
Buchanan.  The  latter  had  yet  fifteen  days  to  remain  in  power. 
This  was  precious  time,  of  which  the  seceders  availed  themselves 
to  prepare  for  the  coming  conflict,  hot  only  in  the  States  already  in 
rebellion,  but  also  in  the  border  States,  where,  under  various  pre- 
texts, they  organized  the  militia  which  Avere  subsequently  to  be 
embodied  in  the  Confederate  army.  A  disaster,  which  had  long 
been  brewing  through  their  contrivances,  contributed  to  weaken 
the  power  of  the  Federal  government  in  their  estimation,  and  to 
increase  their  faith  in  its  helplessness.  General  Twiggs,  who  com- 
manded the  regular  troops  stationed  in  Texas,  w^as  in  accord  with 
the  rebels.  He  suffered  himself  to  be  surrounded,  in  the  city 
of  San  Antonio,  by  the  militia  under  the  command  of  McCulloch, 
Vol.  I.— 9 


130  IHE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and,  biding  his  treason  under  a  shameful  capitulation,  on  the 
16th  of  February,  he  surrendered  to  the  latter  the  troops  he  had 
brought  together  for  that  express  purpose.  By  a  fatal  coincidence, 
his  successor,  Colonel  Waite,  who  had  hurried  from  the  depths 
of  the  wilderness  to  save  this  precious  nucleus  of  an  army,  only 
arrived  in  time  to  share  the  captivity  of  those  he  was  coming  to 
command.  The  leaders  of  the  secession  movement,  being  still 
obliged  to  conceal  their  design  to  a  certain  extent,  in  order  not  to 
jeopardize  their  success,  at  first  treated  these  troops  like  those  of 
a  foreign  power  with  which  they  were  not  at  war:  the  agree- 
ment by  which  they  had  been  delivered  up  was  called  a  treaty  of 
evacuation,  and  Waite  was  conveyed,  with  about  twelve  hundred 
of  his  men,  to  Indianola,  on  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
where,  although  promised  permission  to  ship  for  any  of  the 
Northern  ports,  he  was  detained  under  various  pretexts.  The 
capitulation  of  San  Antonio  was  not  long  in  bringing  forth  its 
fruit;  by  intimidating  the  Unionists  of  Texas  it  enabled  their 
adversaries  to  secure  the  popular  vote  in  favor  of  the  separation 
of  that  State. 

The  4th  of  March,  which  was  to  witness  the  inauguration  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  was  approaching,  and  that  prospective  event  stimu- 
lated the  audacity  of  the  seceders.  While  Virginia  was  protesting 
against  the  presence  in  Washington  of  a  few  companies  of  regular 
troops,  which  through  the  foresight  of  General  Scott  had  been 
ordered  there,  certain  conspirators  were  planning  to  prevent  the 
installation  of  the  new  President  by  means  of  a  contemplated  out- 
rage upon  his  person,  on  his  passage  through  Baltimore,  which,  as 
they  hoped,  might  end  in  assassination.  He  frustrated  tliis  murder- 
ous scheme  by  assuming  a  disguise,  and  arrived  in  Washington 
on  the  23d  of  February,  where  Mr.  Buchanan,  faithful  to  his 
trust,  notwithstanding  his  inexcusable  weaknesses,  hastened  to  put 
himself  in  relation  with  him.  The  withdrawal  from  the  Cabinet 
of  those  who  favored  slavery  had  left  an  open  field  to  men  at- 
tached to  the  Union,  and  one  among  them,  Mr.  Dix,  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  had  even  the  courage,  on  being  informed  of  the  seizure 
of  the  mint  in  New  Orleans,  to  reply  by  an  order  to  shoot  down 
on  the  spot  the  first  man  who  should  touch  the  American  flag. 
Unfortunately,  there  was  nobody  left  in  that  great  city  who  would 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  131 

dare  to  execute  such  instructions.  The  financial  measures  of  Mr. 
Dix  were  more  successful ;  it  was  easy  to  foresee  large  expendi- 
tures ;  the  first  issue  of  eight  millions  of  dollars,  j^^^t  of  the 
loan  of  twenty-five  millions  voted  for  by  Congress  on  the  8th  of 
February,  were  immediately  subscribed  for.  The  North  was  de- 
sirous to  prove  that  she  would  sustain  the  necessary  measures  for 
defending  the  Constitution  with  all  her  resources.  This,  however, 
was  but  an  insignificant  sum  ;  Congress,  therefore,  feeling  that  it 
would  soon  be  necessary  to  consolidate  the  national  credit,  and 
secure  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  government  the  means  of  paying  the  in- 
terest on  the  loans  which  it  would  be  obliged  to  issue,  raised  the 
rates  of  custom-house  duties,  which  until  then  had  almost  sufficed 
to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  national  treasury. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  leaders  of  the  secession  move- 
ment who  held  seats  in  the  national  Legislature  had  followed  the 
example  of  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  left  the  Capitol  the 
moment  that  their  respective  States  had  broken  the  Union  com- 
pact. Consequently,  Congress,  whose  powers  expired  on  the  4th 
of  INIarch  with  those  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  found  itself,  during  the 
last  days  of  its  existence,  suddenly  ruled  by  the  Republicans,  who 
had  previously  been  in  the  minority.  They  took  advantage 
of  this  circumstance  to  raise  the  character  of  Congress  in  the 
eyes  of  the  nation  by  an  act  which  was  at  once  patriotic  and  fore- 
seeing. 

The  Democrats  of  the  North  and  of  the  border  States  made  a 
last  attempt  to  induce  the  Senate  to  adopt  their  plans  of  pretended 
conciliation.  They  endorsed  at  first  the  propositions  of  the  Peace 
Congress,  which,  under  their  influence,  had  prepared  a  programme 
openly  sanctioning  the  right  of  secession.  Beaten  on  this  ground, 
they  again  brought  forward  Mr.  Crittenden's  compromise.  The 
adoption  of  this  measure,  which  misled  many  timid  minds  on 
account  of  its  specious  promises  to  ward  off  civil  war,  would,  in 
reality,  have  secured  the  triumph  of  the  slavery  principle.  This 
fatal  concession,  by  dividing  the  North,  by  taking  from  her  all 
faith  in  the  justice  of  her  cause,  would  have  prepared  an  easy 
victory  for  the  seceders.  After  a  long  and  grave  discussion,  it 
was  rejected  on  the  night  of  the  2d-3d  of  March.  With  this 
vol/e  terminated  the  existence  of  Congress,  which  the  enemies  of 


132  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  Republic  asserted  loudly  would  be  the  last  convened  uudef 
the  old  Constitution.  • 

On  the  following  day  Mr.  Buchanan  ceased  to  be  the  chief  of 
that  nation  he  had  been  called  upon  to  govern  four  years  before, 
when  she  was  yet  united  and  prosperous.  The  end  of  his  adminis- 
tration had  been  disastrous.  He  had  tolerated  everything;  he  had 
done  nothing  to  crush  out  the  rebellion  in  its  inception,  and  had 
left  his  successor  without  the  means  of  fulfilling  the  task  entrusted 
to  him.  He  delivered  into  his  hands  the  government  of  a  shat- 
tered country ;  and  if  civil  war  had  not  yet  drenched  America 
in  blood,  it  was  simply  because  the  rebellion  was  being  organized 
with  impunity  on  its  soil. 

The  accession  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  power  was  destined  to  mark  a 
new  era  in  these  events,  and  to  precipitate  the  crisis  of  which  his 
election  had  been  the  pretext. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FORT  SUMTER. 

THE  inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at  Washington  on  tlie  4th 
of  March,  1861,  will  remain  a  memorable  epoch  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  United  States.  The  solemnity  of  that  ceremony  was 
due  to  the  imposing  gravity  of  concurring  circumstances,  and  not 
to  the  mediocre  pageantry  with  which  traditionary  custom  sur- 
rounded it.  When  ]\Ir.  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Buchanan, 
his  predecessor,  and  by  his  loyal  competitor  Mr.  Douglas,  his  tall 
form  towering  above  all  those  around  him,  appeared  upon  the 
portico  of  the  Capitol  to  take  the  constitutional  oath  and  to  ad- 
dress the  assembled  multitude,  every  one  felt  that  the  time  for 
fatal  concessions  had  passed.  The  address  of  the  new  President, 
written  in  practical  language  and  shorn  of  all  rhetorical  flourishes, 
ended  with  an  appeal  to  the  Union,  the  source  of  national  great- 
ness and  dear  to  every  patriotic  heart — an  appeal  which,  notwith- 
standing its  strange  and  mystic  form,  must  have  been  understood 
by  all  who  heard  it.  The  Republic  had  now  a  chief  determined 
to  defend  it,  while  respecting  the  constitutional  rights  and  liberties 
of  all :  those  who  regarded  the  principle  of  free  labor  as  the  es- 
sential basis  of  a  free  and  democratic  society  saw  at  last  the  man 
of  their  choice  regularly  invested  with  the  insignia  of  the  chief 
magistracy ;  those  who,  notwithstanding  their  affinities  with  slave- 
holders, considered  the  maintenance  of  the  Union  as  the  first 
article  of  political  faith  for  every  good  citizen,  could  rally  around 
him  without  fear.  The  situation  was  clearly  defined,  and  the  re- 
bellion was  thenceforth  without  cause  or  excuses.  Its  leaders 
fully  understood  this;  accordingly,  they  no  longer  sought  to  shel- 
ter themselves  under  the  cover  of  false  pretences. 

Secession  was  an  accomplished  fact.     The  militia  of  the  South 
were  getting  ready  in  every  direction,  while  the  North,  scarcely 

133 


134  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

yet  recovered  from  her  first  astonishment,  was  completely  tinarme<l, 
did  not  know  how  far  the  insurrection  extended,  and  still  hoped 
to  be  able  to  recall  to  their  allegiance  those  of  the  great  slave 
States  which  had  not  yet  proclaimed  the  act  of  separation.  There 
was,  moreover,  a  party  in  the  North  blind  to  all  the  lessons  taught 
by  the  late  events,  which  persistently  talked  of  concessions  and 
compromises,  and,  under  the  name  of  Peace  Democrats,  was  try- 
ing to  cool  the  patriotism  of  the  defenders  of  the  Constitution. 

Whether  by  accident  or  intentionally,  the  Confederates  selected 
the  4th  of  March  to  adopt  a  new  flag,  and  on  the  day  when  Mr. 
Lincoln  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his  functions,  the  Stars  and 
Bars,  as  the  banner  of  the  rebellion  was  called,  were  audaciously 
displayed  in  seven  States.  At  the  same  time,  more  effective  mea- 
sures were  taken  to  convince  the  North  that  those  States  were  fully 
determined  not  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the  new  President. 
On  the  6th  of  March  the  Montgomery  Congress  ordered  a  levy  of 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  as  we  have  already  stated,  and  on  the 
11th  it  adopted  the  project  of  a  Constitution  which  had  been  sub- 
mitted to  it.  Nothing  more  was  wanting  to  put  this  Constitution 
in  force  but  the  ratification  by  the  people  of  each  State. 

Out  of  the  seven  rebel  States,  one  alone  (Texas)  had  called  for 
an  expression  of  public  sentiment  upon  the  ordinance  of  secession 
voted  by  her  convention,  before  having  it  promulgated ;  but  the 
separation  once  irrevocably  accomplished,  the  other  States  were  not 
afraid  of  consulting  the  voters,  for  their  vote  could  no  longer  in- 
fluence the  march  of  events.  Thus  it  was  that  in  the  course  of 
the  month  all  the  States  ratified  the  new  Constitution.  Having 
no  further  occasion  for  using  any  precaution  towards  the  North, 
the  political  leaders  of  the  South  loudly  proclaimed  their  views 
on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  in  an  address  which  has  become 
celebrated,  delivered  by  the  Vice  President  of  the  Confederacy  at 
Savannah  on  the  21st  of  March,  he  explained  this  impious  doc- 
trine without  any  circumlocution,  showing  that  slavery  ought  to 
be  the  corner-stone  of  new  communities ;  that  slavery,  founded  on 
the  inequality  of  races,  was,  in  his  opinion,  in  harmony  with  mod- 
ern science,  as  also  with  biblical  tradition ;  and  that  in  re-estab- 
lishing it  in  a  formal  manner,  the  founders  of  the  Constitution  at 
]Montgomery  had  achieved,  if  we  are  to  believe  ]\Ir.  Stephens, 


FORT  SUMTER.  135 

a  revolution  fruitful  of  beneficial  results  for  the  future  of  civil- 
ization. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  slave  States  which  had  not  broken  up 
their  relations  with  Washington,  o^cillatcvl  between  the  two  par- 
ties, undecided  as  to  what  course  to  pursue.  On  the  4th  of  March 
the  convention  of  Arkansas  pronounced  against  secession ;  on  the 
19th  that  of  Missouri  adopted,  with  some  reservations,  a  similar 
resolution ;  finally,  on  the  4th  of  April  that  of  Virginia  rejected 
by  a  strong  majority  the  propositions  of  the  seceders.  But  these 
States  struggled  in  vain  to  resist  the  example  of  their  associates 
already  engaged  in  the  rebellion ;  linked  to  their  fortunes  by  that 
terrible  bond  of  complicity  which,  in  politics  as  in  private  life, 
places  every  malefactor  at  the  mercy  of  the  most  daring,  they 
were,  soon  or  late,  drawn  into  the  vortex  by  them. 

Unfortunate  Virginia,  especially,  who  had  contributed  so  much 
in  former  days  towards  the  foundation  of  the  Republic,  might, 
by  remaining  faithful  to  the  Constitution,  have  played  even  a  more 
important  part  than  she  did  in  the  days  of  Washington ;  but  the 
servile  institution  had  demoralized  her ;  she  had  become  a  breeder 
of  slaves,  and  the  interests  of  that  odious  traffic  bound  her  to  the 
cause  of  the  South.  Consequently,  seeing  the  Federal  government 
in  jeopardy,  the  border  States  simply  desired  to  keep  up  their 
relations  with  it,  in  order  to  be  the  better  able  to  profit  by  its 
weakness,  to  intimidate  it,  and  to  make  it  subservient  to  their  de- 
mands. At  a  time  when  great  political  passions  are  struggling  for 
the  mastery,  such  a  role  is  always  dangerous  for  those  who  attempt 
to  play  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  gone  to  work  Avithout  allowing  himself  to  be 
discouraged  by  the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  On  the  5th  of 
March  he  formed  his  Cabinet,  assigning  the  highest  position,  that 
of  Secretary  of  State,  or  minister  of  foreign  relations,  to  Mr. 
Seward,  the  most  infiiuential  man  in  the  Republican  party.  Pos- 
sessing great  mental  acuteness,  large  experience  of  men  and  pub- 
lic affiiirs,  a  perseverance  equal  to  any  trial,  and  rare  vigor  of 
body  and  mind,  in  spite  of  his  sickly  appearance,  Mr.  Seward 
concealed  under  the  gloss  of  the  lawyer  a  truly  political  acumen 
and  sincere  patriotism. 

Mr.  Davis's  government  was  not  slow  in  giving  the  Federal 


136  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

government  an  opportunity  to  assert  its  policy.  Looking  npoE 
the  States  from  which  they  had  severed  themselves  as  a  foreign 
country,  the  Confederate  authorities  sent  an  embassy  to  AVashing- 
ton  to  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  to  recognize  them.  Naturally  enough,  the 
President  would  not  look  upon  those  envoys  in  any  other  light 
than  as  citizens  of  the  Union ;  yet  notwithstanding  this  cold  re- 
ception, they  remained  in  Washington  for  more  than  a  month, 
being  still  in  hope  of  extorting  from  the  President  one  word 
which  might  subsequently  be  brought  up  against  him  if  he  re- 
sorted to  force  against  the  insurrection. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  then  the  means  for  adopting  such  a  course. 
His  first  duty  was  to  save  some  few  remnants  of  the  national 
property  situated  in  the  rebel  States,  which  the  latter  had  not  yet 
succeeded  in  taking  possession  of.  These  were  Forts  Pickens  and 
Sumter,  and  the  two  forts  located  at  the  extremity  of  Florida, 
both  of  which  were  protected  against  any  sudden  attack.  More- 
over, the  regular  troops  included  in  the  capitulation  of  San  An- 
tonio, which,  according  to  that  agreement,  should  have  been  re- 
stored to  their  country,  were  still  in  Texas.  The  transport  ship 
Star  of  the  West  was  sent  to  take  them  on  board  and  bring  them 
back  to  the  North. 

— -The  large  sloop-of-war  Broohlyn  had  been  lying  at  anchor  for 
some  time  in  the  bay  of  Pensacola,  in  front  of  Fort  Pickens,  with 
troops,  sujjplies,  and  ammunition ;  but  Mr.  Buchanan,  yielding  to 
the  representations  of  the  seceders,  had  not  allowed  that  vessel 
to  land  her  cargo  at  the  fort.  By  order  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  this 
landing  was  effected  on  the  12th  of  April. 

The  fate  of  the  small  garrison  which  defended  the  Federal  flag, 
floating  on  Fort  Sumter  had  become  a  subject  of  engrossing  anxi- 
ety  both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South  ;  the  whole  political  ques- 
tion which  divided  the  two  parties  was  here  at  stake.  The  author- 
ities of  South  Carolina  kept  that  garrison  closely  blockaded,  de- 
manding the  immediate  surrender  of  the  fort  it  occupied,  and 
continuing  to  build  powerful  batteries  on  both  sides  of  the  bay 
of  Charleston  in  support  of  this  demand.  The  border  States, 
Virginia  in  particular,  true  to  the  principles  of  State  sovereignty, 
also  strenuously  insisted  upon  the  surrender  of  the  fort  by  the 
Federal  government.     At  the  North,  the  peace-at-any-price  party 


FORT  SUMTER.  137 

— those  who  dreaded  war  more  than  humiliating  c(«icessions — ■ 
boisteroubiy  sustained  these  demands.  In  short,  the  military  au- 
thorities having  been  informed  by  Major  Anderson  that  he  should 
be  obliged  to  capitulate  on  the  15th,  for  want  of  provisions,  and 
not  thinking  it  possible  to  revictual  him  in  time,  advised  him  to 
abandon  the  place  of  his  own  accord.  Fortunately  for  the  honor 
of  the  Federal  government,  there  was  one  man  who  believed  it 
possible,  by  the  force  of  energy,  to  overcome  these  difficulties. 
Mr.  Fox,  who  was  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  during  the 
entire  period  of  the  war,  possessed  that  peculiar  kind  of  activity 
and  intelligence  which  rises  superior  to  all  obstacles,  and  can  turn 
the  least  resources  to  account  when  all  hearts  are  discouraged. 
Having  visited  Anderson  at  Fort  Sumter,  a  plan  had  been  agreed 
upon  between  them  for  revictualling  the  garrison,  and  he  pro- 
posed to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  himself  the  instrument  for  carrying  it 
out.  A  decided  course  of  action  had  to  be  adopted.  The  Presi- 
dent felt  that  the  military  necessities  for  the  evacuation  of  Sumter 
would  not  be  appreciated  either  at  the  North  or  at  the  South,  and 
that  it  would  be  viewed  on  both  sides  as  simply  an  act  of  weak- 
ness and  a  voluntary  concession  to  the  demands  of  the  rebellion. 
It  was  better  to  fail  than  not  to  attempt  to  revictual  the  garrison. 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  hesitate;  but  being  always  disposed  to  deal 
fairly  even  towards  a  perfidious  enemy,  he  deemed  it  proper  to 
inform  the  authorities  of  South  Carolina  of  his  intentions  (April 
8).  The  excitement  among  the  seceders  was  great,  for  they  had 
not  anticipated  so  much  determination  and  energy  on  his  part. 
The  Confederate  envoys  left  Washington  suddenly,  and  the  au- 
thorities of  Charleston  went  immediately  to  work  to  prevent  the 
revictualling  of  the  garrison,  by  taking  forcible  possession  of 
Sumter.  By  the  9th  of  April,  Mr.  Fox  had  succeeded,  despite 
the  incredulity  and  indiiference  of  most  of  the  authorities,  in  fit- 
ting out,  as  if  by  magic,  a  naval  force  in  New  York.  He  liim- 
self  embarked  on  board  the  "Baltie  with  two  hundred  soldiers 
secretly  shipped.  Three  sloops-of-war  with  two  tenders  had  jire- 
ceded  him,  and  were  to  join  him  in  front  of  Charleston.  But 
a  fatality  attended  this  expedition  which  had  been  so  ably  or- 
ganized. Contrary  orders  had  changed  the  destination  of  the 
principal  sloop — the  Powhatan,  which  carried  the  launches  for 


138  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

landing — and  sent  her  to  Fort  Pickens,  the  condition  of  which 
also  caused  serious  uneasiness.  A  storm  dispersed  the  rest  of  the 
fleet,  and  when,  on  the  12th  of  April,  the  Baltie,  tossed  by  a  very- 
stormy  sea,  which  did  not  permit  communication  with  the  land, 
appeared  before  Charleston,  only  two  vessels  were  present  at  the 
rendezvous. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederates  had  determined  to  commence 
hostilities.  The  moment  for  striking  a  decisive  blow  had  arrived. 
It  was  necessary  to  force  those  States  which  still  hesitated  into  the 
war,  by  making  a  direct  attack  upon  the  Federal  flag,  which  ex- 
ercised over  them  so  powerful  a  prestige.  On  the  11th  of  April, 
Beauregard,  who  had  been  appointed  general  of  the  Carolina 
troops,  summoned  Anderson  to  surrender  the  fort  to  him,  offering 
him  every  facility  for  evacuating  it.  This  loyal  soldier  had  re- 
ceived no  instractions  from  his  government,  and  the  idea  of  in- 
augurating a  civil  war  might  have  staggered  him ;  but  he  was  one 
of  those  who  do  not  fear  responsibility  when  the  path  of  duty  is 
clearly  defined.  He  replied  that  he  had  only  four  days'  rations 
left,  but  that  so  long  as  he  had  anything  to  eat  he  should  not  de- 
liver up  the  fort  confided  to  his  custody. 

On  the  following  day,  all  the  batteries  which  had  been  leisurely 
erected  along  the  beach  opened  a  converging  fire  on  the  fort.  The 
excitement  in  Charleston,  that  hottest  focus  of  secession,  was  at 
its  height.  An  old  Virginian  seventy-five  years  of  age — Mr. 
Ruffin — who  had  made  himself  conspicuous  at  all  the  popular 
meetings  by  speeches,  the  violence  of  which  contrasted  strangely 
with  his  venerable  countenance  and  long  white  flowing  hair,  re- 
quested the  sad  honor  of  being  allowed  to  fire  the  first  shot  against 
the  national  emblem.  After  one  discharge,  Anderson  returned 
the  fire,  and  the  battle  was  fairly  commenced.  But  the  garrison 
cf  Sumter,  being  destitute  of  the  proper  accessories,  could  only 
serve  a  small  number  of  guns,  and  was  already  suffering  from 
want  of  provisions.  The  shells  of  the  besiegers  soon  set.  fire  to 
the  wooden  buildings  which  covered  the  esplanade  of  the  fort. 
The  cast-iron  cisterns  were  broken  in,  and  it  became  evident  that 
the  defenders,  driven  into  the  casements  by  the  stifling  smoke, 
would  not  be  able  either  to  silence  the  batteries  of  the  enemy  or 
to  resist  his  attacks  much  longer.   The  Confederates  continued  the 


FORT  SUMTER.  139 

bombardment  during  the  whole  night  of  thfe  12th-13th.  The 
garrison,  however,  had  only,  a  few  wounded ;  there  was  no  lack 
of  courage,  and  the  men  were  sustained  by  the  sight  of  the  Fed- 
eral vessels,  which  had  been  discovered  in  the  horizon,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  conflict.  But  this  distant  apparition  only  made 
.them  suffer  the  torments  of  Tantalus;  for  if  those  ships  were 
ready  to  brave  the  enemy's  batteries,  a  heavy,  rolling  sea  did  not 
allow  them  to  venture  among  the  narrow  and  difficult  pa&ses  at 
the  entrance  of  the  bay.  At  last  the  conflagration  burst  forth 
with  renewed  fury,  and  to  avoid  an  explosion  it  was  found  neces- 
sary to  saturate  a  portion  of  the  powder  with  water.  The  ammu- 
nition was  nearly  exhausted ;  six  guns  only  replied  to  the  enemy's 
fire,  and  the  garrison  was  reduced  to  the  last  extremity.  The 
only  food  left  consisted  of  a  few  pieces  of  salt  pork,  the  rest 
having  been  all  destroyed  by  the  flames.  Resistance  was  no 
longer  possible. 

An  officer  bearing  a  flag  of  truce  came  to  demand  the  surrender 
of  the  fort,  and  after  some  parley,  Anderson  went  out  with  the 
honors  of  war,  to  embark  on  board  the  Baltic,  which,  having 
failed  to  revictual  him,  gave  him  at  least  an  honorable  refuge. 
The  garrison  had  only  lost  one  man,  and  this  was  a  soldier  who 
was  killed  after  the  surrender  of  the  fort  by  the  fragment  of  a 
gun  M'hich  exploded  in  saluting  the  Federal  flag.  This  com- 
paratively harmless  commenceinent  was  hardly  a  foreshadowing 
of  the  bloody  struggles  which  were  to  mark  the  course  of  the  war. 

The  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  was  received  by  the  people  of  Charles- 
ton, who  had  witnessed  the  bombardment,  with  transports  of  joy. 
One  would  have  supposed  that  the  Federal  government  had  been 
vanquished  beyond  retrieval.  The  Southern  militia  were  invin- 
2ible  in  the  eyes  of  the  rebels,  and  no  one  doubted,  after  such  an 
achievement,  that  the  North  would  abandon  the  idea  of  troubling 
the  pretended  independence  of  the  South.  The  news  of  this  event 
rendered  the  secession  intriguers  more  daring  everywhere,  and  it 
was  glorified  as  a  victory  even  in  those  slave  States  which  had  not 
yet  broken  with  the  Union. 

But  the  North,  so  far  from  allowing  herself  to  be  discouraged 
by  a  cheek  which  was  in  reality  very  trifling,  only  viewed  it  in  the 
light  of  a  bold  challenge  which  it  behooved  her  to  take  up  ini- 


140  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

mediately.  On  the  very  day  that  Sumter  capitulated,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, in  reply  to  the  delegates  from  Virginia,  who,  in  their  turn^ 
had  united  in  a  request  for  the  surrender  of  that  fort,  defined  the 
duties  imposed  upon  him  by  the  Constitution  and  the  will  of  the 
people  who  had  elected  him.  He  did  not  wish  to  interfere  with 
the  local  affairs  of  the  rebel  States,  but  he  would  protect,  by  force 
if  necessary,  the  rights  with  which  the  central  government  was 
invested  in  virtue  of  the  Federal  compact;  he  would  not  give 
up  the  forts,  nor  renounce  the  custom-house  duties,  which  he 
alone  had  a  right  to  collect  all  along  the  coast  of  the  United 
States,  and  he  would  close  up  the  Federal  post-offices  through- 
out the  rebel  States.  When  he  heard  of  the  attack  and  capture 
of  Sumter,  he  did  not  wait  for  the  explosion  of  popular  indigna- 
tion which  that  hostile  act  would  produce  in  the  North.  He  im- 
mediately called  an  extra  session  of  Congress  to  meet  on  the  4th 
of  July ;  and  making  use  of  the  powers  vested  in  him,  he  issued 
a  call  for  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers  to  defend  the  national 
cause.  His  proclamation,  addressed  to  the  governors  of  all 
the  States  that  had  not  yet  joined  the  rebellion,  fixed  the  con- 
tingent that  each  State  was  to  furnish.  The  levies  of  volunteers 
were  not  made  directly  by  the  government  at  Washington ;  their 
enlistment  and  organization  were  left  to  the  care  of  each  State. 
It  was  a  means  to  try  their  fidelity,  and  to  distinguish  the  earnest 
supporters  of  the  Constitution  from  its  secret  enemies. 

The  replies  to  this  proclamation  were  not  delayed.  All  the 
free  States  protested  their  attachment  to  the  Union,  and  imme- 
diately took  the  necessary  steps  to  raise  a  much  larger  force  than 
the  contingents  required  of  them ;  finding  themselves  sustained 
and  directed  by  the  central  power,  which  clearly  pointed  out  to 
them  where  the  common  danger  lay  and  what  was  the  duty  of 
every  man,  the  people  of  the  North  rushed  to  arms  with  a  degree 
of  unanimity  which  never  abated  afterwards. 

The  slave  States,  on  the  contrary,  utterly  refused  to  co-operate 
in  the  national  defence,  while  the  seceders,  availing  themselves  of 
this  pretext,  made  a  last  effort  to  force  them  into  the  rebellion,  in 
the  name  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  which,  they  said,  had 
been  ignored  by  the  President.  They  succeeded  in  almost  every 
State,  thanks  to  the  intimidation  used  towards  the  few  Union 


FORT  SUMTER.  141 

partisans  that  were  left.  On  the  day  following  the  proclamation 
(April  16th)  the  governor  of  Virginia  called  out  the  State  mili- 
tia for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  Federal  troops  from  enter- 
ing her  territory,  and  his  colleagues  of  the  other  slave  States 
followed  his  example  by  addressing  insulting  replies  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. The  few  governors  who  remained  faithful  to  the  Union 
could  not  prevent  the  secessionists  from  taking  the  initiative  of 
insurrection. 

The  militia  of  Maryland,  having  assembled  spontaneously  in 
spite  of  Mr.  Hicks,  took  possession  of  Annapolis,  the  capital  of 
the  State,  and  of  the  Federal  naval  school,  which  was  located 
there.  The  Texans  seized  the  transport-ship  Star  of  the  West, 
which  was  lying  at  anchor  in  the  bay  of  Galveston.  Finally, 
the  Confederate  government,  having  openly  declared  war,  an- 
nounced the  issue  of  letters  of  marque,  and  invited  the  rebel  States 
to  fit  out  privateers  to  prey  upon  the  merchant-vessels  of  the 
North.  The  secession  excitement  reached  the  capital.  This  city, 
surrounded  by  slave  States,  had  always  lived  under  the  servile 
institution,  to  which  its  population  was  ardently  attached.  The 
secessionists  flocked  to  it  in  great  crowds,  and  loudly  proclaimed 
their  sentiments ;  they  even  thought  of  attempting  a  revolution 
for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  Federal  government  away,  and 
some  among  them  were  actually  arming  with  a  view  to  that 
daring  feat.  The  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  critical  one,  for 
he  had  only  a  few  companies  of  regular  troops  to  make  any 
defence  with.  On  being  advised  of  this  state  of  things,  the 
Northern  States  redoubled  their  activity  In  order  to  be  in  time 
to  succor  the  capital,  the  loss  3f  which  would  have  been  a  disas- 
trous check  to  the  national  cause.  INIassachusetts,  always  the 
most  zealous,  was  the  first  in  the  field,  and  on  the  17th  she  for- 
warded two  regiments  of  volunteers  from  Boston  to  Wasliington 
Pennsylvania,  although  nearly  one-half  of  her  votes  had  been 
given  for  Mr.  Breckinridge,  followed  this  example ;  and  owing  to 
her  geographical  position,  her  volunteers  reached  the  shores  of  the 
Potomac  in  advance  of  all  the  others.  After  passing  through 
the  great  city  of  Baltimore  in  the  midst  of  an  incipient  insurrec- 
tion, they  encamped  around  the  Capitol,  on  the  18th  of  April. 

The  seceders,  on  their  side,  had  not  lost  a  moment  in  Virginia. 


142  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

They  were  in  possession  of  Richmond,  where  the  convention  wag 
in  session ;  they  availed  themselves  of  these  circumstances  to 
consummate  the  rupture  with  the  Federal  government.  Nothing 
was  left  undone  that  might  help  to  bring  over  tlie  hesitating  depu- 
ties. The  ordinance  of  secession  was  passed,  but  merely  by  a  vote 
of  eighty-eight  to  fifty-^ve.  This  act  was  of  great  importance 
to  the  Confederates,  for  Virginia  alone  brought  more  strength  to 
their  cause  than  the  seven  States  which  had  given  the  signal  of 
insurrection.  It  also  promised  to  deliver  into  their  hands  the 
vast  establishments  which  the  Federal  government  possessed  in 
Virginia — the  Norfolk  navy-yard  and  arsenal,  the  largest  in  the 
United  States,  the  great  armory  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  Fort  Mon- 
roe, situated  between  the  mouths  of  the  James  and  York  Rivers 
in  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  commanding  all  those  inland  waters. 
The  Federal  government  had  neglected  until  too  late  to  adopt  the 
necessary  precautions  for  the  protection  of  those  establishments 
against  any  sudden  attack,  or  at  least  for  saving  their  valuable 
contents.  The  workshops  and  arsenal  of  Harper's  Ferry,  situ- 
ated at  the  confluence  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Shenandoah,  on 
a  spot  which  was  destined  to  play  an  important  part  during  the 
war,  were  only  guarded  by  a  detachment  of  sixty-four  dis- 
mounted dragoons ;  and  the  Virginia  volunteers,  assembled  in 
the  valleys  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  were  ready  to  take  possession  of 
them  as  soon  as  the  ordinance  for  the  secession  of  Virginia 
should  furnish  them  a  pretext.  They  were  then  to  cross  the 
Potomac  and  join  the  insurgents  of  Maryland,  for  the  purpose 
of  attempting  the  capture  of  Washington,  where  their  accom- 
plices were  expecting  them.  On  the  morning  of  the  18th,  a  por- 
tion of  them  were  on  their  march,  in  the  hope  of  seizing  the 
prey  which  was  to  be  of  so  much  value  to  the  future  armies  of 
the  Confederacy.  But  Lieutenant  Jones,  who  was  in  command 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  had  been  informed  of  the  approach  of  the 
Confederate  troops  under  the  lead  of  Ashby — a  chief  well  known 
since ;  notwithstanding  their  despatch,  they  only  arrived  in  sight 
of  Harper's  Ferry  in  time  to  see  from  a  distance  a  large  confla- 
gration that  was  consuming  the  workshops,  store-houses,  and  the 
enormous  piles  of  muskets  heaped  in  the  yards,  while  the  Federal 
soldiers  who  had  just  kindled  it  were  crossing  the  Potomac  on 


FORT  SUMTER.  143 

their  way  to  Washington.  The  Confederates  found  no  thing  but 
smoking  ruins,  and  some  machinery,  which  they  sent  to  Rich- 
mond ;  their  allies  from  Maryland  had  not  made  their  appear- 
ance, and  they  did  not  feel  strong  enough  to  venture  alone  to  the 
other  side  of  the  Potomac. 

During  the  last  few  days  the  authorities  of  Virginia  had  been 
making  preparations  for  capturing  the  Norfolk  arsenal  (navy- 
yard).  That  establishment  possessed  a  magnificent  granite  basin, 
construction  stocks,  and  a  depot  of  artillery  with  more  than  two 
thousand  guns ;  a  two-decked  vessel  was  on  the  stocks,  two  others, 
with  a  three-decker,  three  frigates,  a  steam  sloop,  and  a  brig,  lay 
dismantled  in  the  port;  the  steam  frigate  3Iernmac  was  there 
undergoing  repairs ;  the  steam  sloop  Germantown  was  in  the  har- 
bor ready  to  go  to  sea,  while  the  sailing  sloop  Cumberland  was 
lying  to  at  the  entrance  of  the  port.  The  possession  of  all  this 
material  of  war  would  have  enabled  the  Confederates  to  create  a 
navy,  and  the  guns  would  have  sufficed  to  arm  all  their  forts. 
The  process  of  obstructing  the  passes,  in  order  to  blockade  the 
Federal  vessels,  had  commenced  on  the  14th  of  April;  on  the 
18th,  the  day  of  the  attempt  against  Harper's  Ferry,  the  railroad 
cars  brought  a  number  of  Virginia  militia  to  Norfolk,  sent  there 
for  the  express  purpose  of  taking  possession  of  the  arsenal. 

Commodore  McCauley,  the  Federal  commandant,  was  sur- 
rounded by  traitors,  who  were  numerous  both  among  the  work- 
men of  the  arsenal  and  his  own  officers.  The  latter,  who  were 
mostly  Virginians,  assured  him  of  their  devotion  to  the  Union, 
and,  taking  advantage  of  his  weakness,  persuaded  him  to  sus- 
pend the  execution  of  an  order  just  received  from  Washington,  in 
consequence  of  which  the  Merrhnac,  of  more  value  to  him  than 
all  the  other  vessels  then  at  Norfolk,  was  getting  ready  to  go  to 
sea.  On  the  following  day  they  all  tendered  their  resignations, 
and  joining  the  insurgent  militia  made  preparations  to  capture 
the  arsenal.  The  fatal  error  of  McCauley,  however,  was  not 
without  a  remedy ;  he  could  have  evacuated  the  arsenal,  and,  with 
the  armed  vessels,  have  defended  its  approaches  from  the  land 
side  until  he  should  receive  assistance,  or  should  be  able  to  take 
away  all  the  vessels  that  were  afloat,  by  steering  clear  of  the 
obstacles,  which  did  not  completely  obstruct   the  passes.      But 


144  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

when  he  saw  the  Virginians  present  themselves  at  the  gates  of  the 
arsenal  with  cannon,  he  believed  everything  was  lost ;  he  prom- 
ised not  to  change  the  position  of  a  single  vessel,  and  on  the  20th 
he  ordered  every  ship  to  be  sunk  except  the  Cumberland.  Just 
as  these  vessels  were  slowly  sinking  into  the  water.  Captain  Paul- 
ding arrived  from  Washington  with  a  reinforcement  of  troops  to 
defend  the  arsenal,  and  also  to  supersede  McCauley. 

It  was  too  late.  Paulding  could  do  nothing  more  than  set  fire 
to  the  vessels,  which  the  Confederates  might  otherwise  have  easily 
raised  again ;  some  were  completely  consumed,  others,  like  the 
Merrimac,  foundered  before  they  had  been  destroyed  by  the  fire. 
There  only  remained  afloat  the  Cumberland  and  the  Pawnee^ 
which  had  brought  Paulding  over;  this  officer,  having  no  longer 
the  means  to  maintain  himself  at  Norfolk,  did  what  he  could,  on 
the  morning  of  the  21st,  to  destroy  the  arsenal  buildings,  and 
then  retired  into  the  harbor  of  Hampton  Roads.  The  Confeder- 
ates found  abundant  resources  in  artillery  and  materiel  of  every 
description  in  Norfolk ;  the  fire  was  soon  extinguished,  the  docks 
repaired,  and  they  succeeded  in  raising  the  Mei^imae,  which  we 
shall  see  at  work  the  following  year. 

Fort  Monroe  had  just  been  occupied  by  a  small  Federal  gar- 
rison. Its  loss  would  have  been  even  more  disastrous  to  the 
Federal  cause  than  that  of  the  Norfolk  navy-yard  and  arsenal, 
because  the  Confederates,  instead  of  having  to  cover  Richmond, 
would  have  been  able  to  blockade  Washington  by  sea  and  be- 
siege it  by  land;  this  circumstance  alone  would  certainly  have 
prolonged  the  war  far  beyond  the  period  to  which  it  extended. 

The  vast  importance  of  this  small  fortress,  however,  could  not 
be  appreciated  at  a  time  when  no  one  knew  where  defection  would 
stop.  Nearly  all  the  offices  in  Washington,  from  that  of  chief- 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  that  of  the  humblest  department 
clerk,  were  filled  by  friends  and  accomplices  of  the  insurgents. 
Some  quitted  their  posts,  as  people  abandon  a  sinking  vessel,  and 
threw  the  whole  service  into  confusion.  Others  only  continued 
in  office  to  betray  the  secrets  of  the  government  to  the  enemy. 
In  the  army  such  acts  of  perfidious  treason  did  not  occur,  but,  as 
we  have  stated,  defections  were  also  very  numerous.  Each  day 
increased  the  number,  and  there  were  even  some  officers  wlio, 


FORT  SmiTER.  145 

after  hesitating  a  long  time  between  their  military  duties  and 
their  allegiance  to  the  dogma  of  State  sovereignty,  decided  to  go 
over  to  the  enemy  after  the  war  should  have  assumed  a  serious 
character. 

In  order  to  form  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  defection  it  is 
only  necessary  to  take  up  the  Annual  Register  for  September, 
1861,  a  small  pamphlet  proportionate  to  the  size  of  the  army  at 
that  period,  and  examine  the  chapter  of  losses  by  resignation  and 
otherwise.  By  the  side  of  the  death  record,  which  contains  only 
eighteen  names,  there  will  be  found  a  long  list  of  officers  who  had 
resigned  their  commissions  in  the  regular  army,  beginning  with 
two  generals,  the  two  Johnstons,  six  colonels,  Robert  E.  Lee 
among  the  number,  a  great  many  of  the  higher  class  of  employes 
in  the  military  departments,  and  occasionally  more  than  half  the 
officers  belonging  to  a  regiment;  all  together  two  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  names  out  of  about  six  hundred  which  the  regular 
army  contained.  Tliis  list,  which  one  cannot  read  without  pain- 
ful wonder,  comprises  nearly  tlie  whole  of  the  general  staff  of 
the  Confederate  army,  whose  ranks  -were  opened  to  the  greater 
part  of  those  who  had  thus  resigned  their  commissions. 

The  example  of  Virginia  fired  the  enthusiasm  of  the  secession- 
ists everywhere,  and  they  applied  themselves  to  the  task  of  draw- 
ing into  tlie  conflict  those  slave  States  which  were  still  hesitating. 
On  the  18th  of  April,  the  same  day  which  witnessed  the  burning 
of  Harper's  Ferry,  they  assembled  at  Louisville,  in  Kentucky,  for 
the  purpose  of  openly  organizing  the  rebellion.  On  the  20th  the 
authorities  of  North  Carolina  took  possession  of  the  Federal  mint 
at  Charlotteville,  and  finally,  the  secession  movement  broke  out 
in  Maryland.  The  sight  of  the  Pennsylvania  volunteers  had 
caused  a  great  irritation  in  Baltimore.  That  city,  the  largest  in 
the  slave  Stales,  containing  a  large  number  of  proud  and  powerful 
families,  still  wealthy,  but  already  touched  with  the  first  symp- 
toms of  that  decay  which  slavery  engenders  soon  or  late,  was  en- 
vious of  the  prosperity  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and 
warmly  sympathized  with  the  South.  Her  location  on  the  rail- 
way line  which  connects  Washington  with  the  great  cities  of  the 
North  imparted  to  her  a  peculiar  importance.  Consequently, 
the  accomplices  of  the  South,  who  were  numerous  in  Baltimore, 

Vol.  I.— 10 


1  iQ  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

determined  to  i^eizQ  the  first  opportunity  that  miglit  offer  to  drag 
that  city  into  the  rebellion.  The  arrival  of  the  troops  which  the 
North  was  sending  on  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  Washington 
against  a  coup-de-main  furnished  them  with  an  excellent  pretext. 
It  was  determined  to  oppose  their  passage,  as  the  greatest  service 
that  could  be  rendered  to  the  Confederate  cause.  The  populace, 
exasperated  by  the  destruction  of  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
and  stirred  up  by  the  conspirators,  was  to  take  charge  of  the  mat- 
ter ;  the  authorities  did  not  interfere.  The  looked-for  opportu- 
nity occurred  on  the  following  day,  April  19.  When  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  regiment,  with  a  few  battalions  of  Pennsylvania 
volunteers,  arrived  at  the  northern  station,  an  immense  crowd 
bore  down  upon  them.  A  line  of  rails,  laid  in  the  centre  of  the 
streets,  connected  this  with  the  southern  station,  and  enabled  the 
cars,  drawn  by  horses,  to  pass  through  the  city.  The  crowd 
surround  the  soldiers  of  the  Sixth  Massachusetts,  who  occupy 
these  cars.  The  last  cars  are  stopped,  and  the  occupants,  being 
obliged  to  get  out,  endeavor  to  make  their  way  through  the 
crowd. 

But  being  hemmed  in  on  all  sides,  they  are  soon  attacked  by 
a  shower  of  stones,  which  w^ound  many  of  them,  and  injure  a 
few  mortally.  The  soldiers  have  to  defend  themselves,  and  the 
first  discharge  of  musketry,- which  has  considerable  effect,  opens 
them  a  passage.  But  the  aggressors,  being  armed,  rally,  and  a 
regular  battle  ensues  between  the  small  band  of  Federal  troops 
and  the  crowd,  which  presses  them  on  all  sides.  At  last,  the 
Massachusetts  soldiers  rejoin  their  comrades  at  the  southern  sta- 
tion ;  and  getting  on  board  a  long  train  of  cars  that  is  waiting  for 
them,  they  slowly  proceed  towards  Washington,  followed  at  a 
distance  by  the  enraged  multitude.  The  other  troops,  who  remain 
at  the  station  where  they  have  alighted,  being  unable  to  pass 
through  the  city,  are  compelled  to  turn  back.  Baltimore  w^as 
thenceforth  in  possession  of  the  secessionists,  who  were  fully  de- 
termined to  take  advantage  of  the  situation  of  that  city  to  inter- 
cept all  communications  between  Washington  and  the  North. 
Accordingly,  they  hastened  to  burn  the  railroad  bridges  which 
had  been  constructed  over  large  estuaries  north  of  Baltimore,  and 
to  cut  the  telegraph  wires.     Deprived  of  all  sources  of  informa- 


FORT  SUMTER.  147 

tion  from  the  North,  the  capital  of  the  Union  was  soon  wrapped 
in  mournful  silence.  For  some  days  the  occupant  of  the  White 
House  was  unable  to  forward  any  instructions  to  the  people  who 
had  remained  faithful  to  the  Union ;  but  their  zeal  did  not  abate 
on  that  account.  Patriotism  extinguished  all  party  animosities 
in  the  hearts  of  most  of  the  Democrats  who  had  opposed  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln.  In  the  presence  of  the  national  peril  they 
loyally  tendered  their  assistance  to  the  President;  and  breaking 
loose  from  their  former  accomplices  of  the  South,  they  assumed  the 
name  of  War  Democrats  in  opposition  to  that  of  Peace  Democrats. 
Their  motto  was  the  support  of  the  Union,  pure  and  simple. 
<^n  the  20th  of  April,  when  tidings  of  the  Baltimore  riots 
were  received,  the  leaders  of  the  party — Messrs.  Dix,  Baker,  and 
others,  who  were  to  become  distinguished  in  the  war — -held  a  mass- 
meeting  in  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  asserting  their  fidelity  to 
the  Constitution,  and  of  imparting  thereby  a  truly  national  cha- 
racter to  the  efforts  of  the  North  in  its  defence. 

On  the  same  day  General  Wool,  who  was  in  command  of  all 
the  Federal  troops  east  of  the  ISIississippi,  being  without  instruc- 
tions from  Washington,  took  the  responsibility  of  forwarding 
to  the  capital,  by  passing  round  Baltimore,  all  the  forces  already 
organized  he  could  dispose  of.  The  way  was  opened  by  a  Massa- 
chusetts general — Mr.  Butler,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  men 
in  the  Democratic  party ;  at  the  head  of  a  few  troops  from  his 
own  State,  he  embarked  on  the  Susquehanna  River,  proceeded 
down  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  came  to  anchor  in  front  of  Annapo- 
lis, which  had  been  in  possession  of  the  rebels  for  three  days. 
This  little  town  was  connected  with  Wasliington  by  a  railway 
which  made  a  junction  with  the  main  line  south  of  Baltimore, 
thus  rendering  it  easy  to  avoid  the  insurgent  city. 

Again,  on  the  same  day — April  20 — the  volunteers  raised  by 
the  State  of  Illinois  occupied  a  position  in  the  West  highly  im- 
portant for  future  army  operations — that  of  Cairo,  a  town  situated 
on  a  marshy  peninsula  at  the  confluence  of  the  Ohio  and  Missis- 
sippi Rivers.  In  the  mean  while,  tlie  Federal  authorities  deter- 
mined to  frustrate  the  intrigues  of  the  insurgents'  accomplices  in 
the  North  by  seizing  all  the  telegraph  wires,  which  the  latter  had 
used  with  impunity  until  then  for  their  criminal  purposes.  Finally, 


148  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

on  the  26th  of  April,  Fort  Pickens  was  placed  out  of  all  clanger 
hj  the  arrival  of  the  Powhatan^  which,  as  we  have  stated,  had  been 
detached  from  the  expedition  fitted  out  by  Fox  for  revictualling 
Major  Anderson,  and  which  was  at  least  able  successfully  to  ac- 
complish the  new  task  assigned  to  her. 

Thus  the  week  following  the  attack  and  capt are  of  Fort  Sum- 
ter witnessed  the  cessation  of  all  hesitancy  on  both  sides.  Blood 
was  flowing  ;  the  struggle  was  extending  farther  and  farther,  and 
the  march  of  events  was  progressing  rapidly. 

On  the  22d  of  April  the  Virginia  convention  conferred  upon 
Colonel  Lee  the  command  of  all  the  forces  of  that  State ;  on  the 
24th,  repudiating  its  former  declarations,  it  announced  the  acces- 
sion of  Virginia  to  the  Southern  Confederacy,  without  waiting  for 
the  popular  vote,  which  had  yet  to  be  taken  on  the  act  of  separa- 
tion itself.     On  the  following  day  the  same  convention  ordered  a 
levy  of  volunteers,  and  invited  the  Confederate  government  to  re- 
move its  head-quarters  to  Richmond,  until  they  could  be  trans- 
ferred to  Washington.    These  violent  measures  met  with  a  strong 
opposition  on  the  part  of  those  counties  occupying  the  western 
slopes  and  elevated  valleys  of   the  Alleghanies.     This  region, 
known  by  the  name  of  Western  Virginia,  had  been  settled  for  the 
most  part  by  people  who  had  come  from  the  north-east,  like  those 
who  inhabit  the  free  State  of  Ohio,  from  which  it  was  only  sepa- 
rated by  the  river  of  that  name.     These  people  had  kept  up  a  con- 
stant intercourse  with  the  State  they  had  emigrated  from,  and  to 
which  they  were  bound  by  their  own  interests  and  the  configura- 
tion of  the  country  in  which  they  lived.    Slavery  only  existed  in 
a  legal  form,  but  not  in  their  customs.     Their  delegates  to  the 
convention,  therefore,  had  all  voted  against  secession.     They  re- 
fused to  acquiesce  in  it,  and  on  the  22d  of  April  they  held  a  meet- 
ing at  Clarksville  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  the  Federal  com- 
pact which  their  colleagues  wanted  to  compel  them  to  break. 

In  the  mean  time,  volunteers  were  hurrying  from  all  parts  of 
the  North ;,  the  danger  which  threatened  the  capital  stimulated 
their  zeal,  and  their  organization — which  we  will  explain  at  full 
length  in  the  following  chapter — was  everywhere  pursued  with 
feverish  activity.  Reinforcements  were  promptly  sent  to  Butler, 
who  landed  them  and  took  possession  of  Annapolis ;  then,  follow- 


FORT  SUMTER.  149 

ing  the  line  of  laihvay,  which  the  insurgents  had  destroyed,  he 
repaired  the  line,  and  on  the  25th  of  April  took  sudden  possession 
of  the  point  where  this  branch  of  the  railway  connected  with  the 
main  line. 

Communications  with  Washington  were  thus  reopened,  and  on 
the  following  day  three  New  York  regiments  came  to  guarantee 
the  safety  of  the  capital.  The  plans  of  the  secessionists  for  its 
capture  were  frustrated,  and  the  Federal  government  was  at  last 
enabled  to  devote  itself  with  more  safety  to  the  immense  task  it 
had  on  hand.  The  legislature  of  JNIaryland,  having  met  at  Fred- 
erick, the  very  centre  of  the  insurrection,  despite  the  loyal  though 
feeble  efforts  of  Governor  Hicks,  protested  in  vain  against  the 
bold  proceedings  of  Butler ;  but  the  militia,  which  had  been  called 
out,  did  not  dare  to  trouble  the  latter. 

At  the  other  extremity  of  the  line  which  separated  the  free 
from  the  slave  States,  the  Unionists  of  Missouri  were  at  the  same 
time  organizing  for  the  purpose  of  resisting  the  governor  of  that 
State,  Avho  was  openly  preparing  for  secession,  and  had  called  out 
the  militia  of  the  counties  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  South  to 
sustain  him. 

In  the  Tennessee  legislature,  convened  to  meet  on  the  25th,  the 
Confederates,  by  means  of  threats,  could  count  upon  a  devoted 
majority.  On  the  1st  of  May  this  assembly  authorized  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  State  to  enter  the  Confederacy,  while  on  the  same 
day  that  of  North  Carolina  voted  a  levy  of  thirty  thousand  vol- 
unteers to  oppose  the  Federal  troops.  The  Confederate  Congress, 
having  assembled  at  Montgomery  on  the  29th  of  April,  directed 
this  movement,  which  was  increasing  and  spreading  with  rapidity, 
promising  soon  to  draw  the  representatives  of  all  the  slave  States 
into  its  fold. 

It  was  no  longer  possible  to  indulge  in  any  self-deceptions  re- 
garding the  power  of  the  rebellion.  The  seventy-five  thousand 
volunteers  that  had  been  asked  of  the  several  States  were  evidently 
insufficient  to  fight  it.  As  we  have  stated,  the  slave  States  had 
refused  to  contribute  their  quota  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union, 
while  the  Northern  States  were  ready  to  double  or  triple  it  when- 
ever the  President  should  ask  them  to  do  so.  The  latter  deter- 
mined to  order  a  new  levy  on  the  3d  of  May.     He  called  for 


150  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

forty-two  thousand  volunteers.  But  this  time,  instead  of  appeal- 
ing to  each  State,  as  he  had  done  in  the  first  call,  for  a  fixed  and 
fully  organized  contingent,  he  simply  asked  them  for  regiments, 
which  were  afterwards  to  be  enrolled  and  formed  into  brigades  by 
the  Federal  authority ;  the  terms  of  enlistment  were  no  longer  to 
be  for  three  months,  but  for  three  years,  or  during  the  war  if  it 
should  terminate  sooner.  This  clause  showed  that  the  authorities 
comprehended  at  last  what  the  duration  of  the  war  might  be,  but 
it  did  not  prevent  volunteers  from  rushing  in  crowds  to  offer  their 
services.  The  desire  to  defend  the  Union  animated  all  hearts, 
while  the  want  of  work,  caused  by  the  prevailing  stagnation  in 
every  kind  of  business,  facilitated  enlistments.  Two  hundred 
and  eight  regiments  were  organized  without  the  least  delay  or 
difficulty  in  the  jSTorthern  States,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty-three 
of  these,  amounting  to  more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
thousand  men — that  is  to  say,  four  times  the  number  asked  by 
Mr.  Lincoln — were  mustered  into  service  two  months  after.  The 
standing  army  was  to  be  reconstructed  by  the  call,  made  at  the 
same  time,  for  twenty-two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fourteen 
regulars.  Finally,  a  levy  of  eighteen  thousand  sailors  to  fit  out 
a  naval  fleet  was  ordered. 

The  navy  was  about  to  have  a  hard  task  to  perform.  The  ex- 
tent of  the  Southern  coasts,  indented  Avith  deep  bays,  possessing 
excellent  ports,  and  presenting  numerous  inlets  for  shelter  and 
safety  to  those  acquainted  with  the  labyrinth  of  islands  and  es- 
tuaries to  be  found  there,  afforded  great  facilities  for  trade,  smug- 
gling, and  maritime  warfare.  The  leaders  of  the  rebellion  were 
preparing  to  take  advantage  of  this.  The  Southern  States,  de- 
voted to  the  cultivation  of  cotton  and  the  sugar-cane,  had  hitherto 
depended  entirely  upon  JSTorthern  merchants  and  navigators,  who 
exported  their  produce,  and  brought  them  in  exchange,  either 
from  America  or  Europe,  nearly  all  the  commodities  necessary  to 
a  civilized  community.  They  thought  the  old  continent  could 
not  dispense  with  their  produce  any  more  than  they  could  with 
its  commodities.  They  relied,  moreover,  upon  the  spirit  of  specu- 
lation, being  convinced  that  it  would  not  fail  to  come  to  them  for 
cotton,  of  which  they  were  the  sole  possessors,  and  supply  them 
with  arms  and  munitions  of  war  in  return.     In  short,  if  they 


FORT  SUMTER.  151 

could  exist  without  articles  of  luxury,  and  if  a  change  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  soil  would  secure  them  provisions,  the  spoils  of  the 
Union  arsenals  would  not  suffice  to  equip  all  the  troops  they  pro- 
posed to  raise.  A  direct  trade  with  Europe  was  therefore  indis- 
pensable to  them ;  this  was  carried  on  under  the  flags  of  neutral 
powers,  especially  that  of  England.  The  flag  of  the  new  Con- 
federacy could  not  be  hoisted  except  on  vessels  fitted  out  for  war- 
purposes,  otherwise  it  would  have  been  at  the  mercy  of  the  nu- 
merous Federal  cruisers ;  but  the  few  privateers  that  carried  it — 
many  of  which  never  even  once  touched  at  a  Confederate  port — 
showed,  by  the  injury  they  inflicted  upon  the  merchant  navy  of 
the  North,  what  a  formidable  arm  the  insurgents  would  have  had 
in  their  hands  if  they  had  been  able  to  fit  out  those  vessels  in 
their  own  ports.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  in  view  of  these 
facts,  to  establish  a  strict  blockade  of  their  coasts.  Every  gov- 
ernment has  the  right  to  blockade  the  ports  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  its  sovereignty  through  the  medium  of  a  proclamation. 
The  Constitution  having  conferred  upon  the  Federal  power  the 
exclusive  privilege  of  establishing  and  collecting  custom-house 
duties,  the  moment  that  the  insurrection  prevented  the  govern- 
ment from  collecting  such  duties  on  land,  the  blockade  was  its 
only  alternative  for  maintaining  this  privilege,  and  it  could  resort 
to  such  alternative  without  going  beyond  the  limits  of  its  prerog- 
atives. Accordingly,  on  the  19th  of  April  Mr.  Lin(3oln  issued  a 
proclamation  declaring  all  the  coasts  of  the  States  then  in  rebel- 
lion in  a  state  of  blockade,  and  on  the  29th,  when  the  secession 
of  North  Carolina  was  imminent  and  that  of  Virginia  had  been 
proclaimed,  he  extended  the  blockade  to  those  States  likewise. 
To  establish  an  effective  blockade  along  a  coast  which  extends 
from  the  Rio  Grande  on  the  frontier  of  Mexico  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Potomac  near  Washington,  was  an  immense  undertaking; 
we  shall  see  presently  how  the  Federal  fleet  went  to  work  to  ac- 
complish this  task.  Disorganized,  scattered,  and  lacking  the 
necessary  number  of  vessels,  it  naturally  could  not  at  first  estab- 
lish the  blockade  as  strictly  everywhere  as  modern  usages  require 
in  cases  of  international  wars ;  this  gave  rise  to  frequent  disputes 
with  European  powers,  whose  commerce  was  attracted  to  South- 
ern ports  by  the  precious  deposits  of  cotton  which  had  accumu- 


152  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

lated  there.  But,  as  we  shall  explain  at  the'  end  of  this  volume, 
those  powers  transcended  their  rights  when,  instead  of  protesting 
against  the  blockade,  if  they  found  it  ineffectual,  they  made  its 
establishment  a  pretext  for  recognizing  the  belligerent  rights  of 
the  insurgents. 

The  manner  in  which  the  North  had  answered  Mr.  Lincoln's 
call,  enabled  the  government,  not  to  attack  the  rebellion  on  its 
own  ground  as  yet,  but  at  least  to  limit  its  progress.  It  was 
necessary,  first  of  all,  to  free  the  Capital  completely  from  danger 
and  secure  its  communications  with  the  loyal  States.  The  safety 
of  "Washington  depended  upon  the  possession  of  Baltimore ;  and 
if  the  enemy  had  remained  master  of  that  city,  the  war  would 
have  been  carried  to  tlie  borders  of  the  Susquehanna. 

The  Unionists,  although  in  a  minority  in  the  city  of  Balti- 
more, had  taken  fresh  courage,  and  no  longer  concealed  their 
sympathies.  Butler,  who  had  remained  at  Annapolis  Junction, 
determined,  with  the  forces  at  his  disposal,  to  reinstate  the  Fed- 
eral authority  in  that  city,  and  on  the  5th  of  May  he  took  pos- 
session of  the  Relay  House,  another  important  railway  junction, 
which  was  only  a  few  leagues  distant  from  the  first.  On  the  9th, 
Colonel  Patterson  joined  him  with  some  Pennsylvania  volunteers, 
after  passing  rapidly  through  Baltimore,  that  city  being  too  much 
astonished  at  such  a  daring  act  to  oppose  his  course.  On  the 
14th,  Butler  made  a  feint  to  the  westward,  and,  while  General 
Scott  was  preparing  the  plan  of  a  regular  campaign  for  the  pur- 
pose of  capturing  the  rebel  city,  he  suddenly,  after  a  night's 
march,  took  possession  of  the  heights  surrounding  it  without  a 
fight.  Baltimore  was  at  his  mercy ;  on  the  same  day  he  entered 
the  city  with  his  troops,  reopened  the  direct  line  of  railway  which 
traversed  it,  and  compelled  the  leaders  of  the  secession  party,  who 
had  held  control  of  it  during  four  weeks,  to  submit.  His  first 
step  was  to  take  away  from  them  the  means  of  making  another 
attempt  in  behalf  of  the  Confederates.  The  Constitution  granted 
to  the  President,  in  the  event  of  an  insurrection,  the  most  extensive 
powers,  subject  to  the  approval  of  Congress.  Mr.  Lincoln  availed 
himself  of  this  prerogative  to  suspend  the  habeas  corpus,  that 
essential  guarantee  of  individual  liberty  without  which  no  people 
can  be  really  free,  the  privileges  of  which,  however,  cannot  be 


FORT  SUMTER.  153 

accorded  by  a  nation  in  arms  to  those  who  are  in  open  rebellion 

against  her  la^v^s.     The  forts  which  command  the  entrance  to  Bal- 
es 

timore  were  scion  turned  into  prisons  for  those  secession  leaders 
who  had  conspired  to  invite  the  enemy  to  take  possession  of  their 
city.  This  severe  step  consolidated  the  Federal  authority,  paci- 
fied the  city,  which  had  been  the  scene  of  the  bloody  riot  of  the 
19th  of  April,  intimidated  those  who  were  preparing  for  a  renewal 
of  similar  disturbances  elsewhere,  and  gave  the  Northern  States 
confidence  in  the  vigor  of  the  new  government. 

All  these  States,  through  the  medium  of  their  legislatures, 
encouraged  the  government  to  fight  the  rebellion  resolutely ;  and 
the  events  which  transpired  both  in  the  West  and  in  the  South, 
between  the  call  for  volunteers  and  the  capture  of  Baltimore,  did 
not  permit  any  further  hesitation  as  to  what  that  government 
ought  to  do.  In  fact,  on  the  6th  of  May,  while  the  Confederate 
Congress  was  endorsing  Mr.  Davis's  proclamation  announcing  the 
issue  of  letters  of  marque,  tlie  Arkansas  convention,  intimidated 
by  the  threats  of  the  rebels,  was  voting  in  favor  of  secession. 

On  the  following  day  the  legislature  of  Tennessee  joined  the 
Confederacy,  without  waiting  for  the  popular  vote  on  the  ordi- 
nance of  secession,  and  in  spite  of  the  determined  opposition  of 
the  eastern  districts,  which  were  as  much  in  favor  of  the  Union 
as  their  neighbors  of  West  Virginia ;  they  crowned  this  act  of 
violence  by  ordering  a  levy  of  fifty-five  thousand  men.  In  Texas, 
Van  Dorn  continued  to  pursue  the  remnants  of  the  regular  army 
with  all  the  eagerness  of  a  man  who  had  deserted  his  colors. 
His  former  comrades,  betrayed  through  the  defection  of  Twiggs, 
were,  some  of  them,  in  San  Antonio  with  Colonel  Waite,  the 
remainder  with  Major  Sibley  at  Indianola,  where  they  had  been 
conveyed  under  promise  of  being  allowed  to  ship  for  the  North ; 
none  of  these  soldiers,  notwithstanding  the  many  offers  they 
received,  had  forsaken  their  commanders  to  enter  the  service  of 
the  rebels.  The  latter,  astonished  and  annoyed  at  this  persistent 
loyalty  to  the  Federal  flag,  sought  out  an  opportunity  to  retain 
them  as  prisoners. 

The  bombardment  of  Sumter  furnished  them  such  an  oppor- 
tunity in  time.  As  soon  as  the  Texas  authorities  received  infor- 
mation of  the  fact,  they  declared  that,  being  at  war  with  the  gov- 


154  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ernment  of  Washington,  they  no  longer  recognized  the  capitula- 
tion of  San  Antonio,  and  that  all  the  Federal  troops  which  hap- 
pened to  be  on  their  territory  must  be  considered  as  prisoners 
of  war. 

Van  Dorn  was  charged  with  the  execution  of  this  order,  which 
was  a  violation  of  a  sacred  pledge.  Sibley  was  waiting  at  Indian- 
ola  to  embark  on  the  Star  of  the  West,  the  same  transport-ship 
which,  a  short  time  before,  had  vainly  attempted  to  revictual 
Fort  Sumter.  Being  ignorant  of  the  fate  of  that  vessel,  which 
had  been  seized  in  the  port  of  Galveston,  he  had  already  got  into 
the  boats  that  were  to  take  him  and  his  soldiers  on  board,  out- 
side the  bay  of  Matagorda,  when  instead  of  the  Star  of  the  West 
he  saw  several  Confederate  steamers  loaded  with  troops  under  the 
command  of  Van  Dorn.  He  was  obliged  to  disembark;  and 
being  without  means  of  defence,  he  had  to  submit  to  the  condi- 
tions imposed  upon  him.  After  being  kept  for  some  time  pris- 
oners, the  Federals  were  released  on  parole  until  they  could  be 
exchanged.  Waite  and  the  officers  who  were  with  him  in  San 
Antonio  experienced  the  same  fate.  There  was  still  left  a  detach- 
ment of  the  Eighth  Regulars,  consisting  of  about  three  hundred 
men,  who  were  slowly  returning  from  the  posts  situated  in  the 
neighborhood  of  El  Paso  del  Norte ;  on  reaching  Central  Texas, 
they  found  the  insurgents  in  possession  of  all  the  depots  upon 
which  they  were  to  subsist ;  and  being  soon  surrounded  by  Van 
Dorn,  who  had  come  to  meet  them  Avith  fifteen  hundred  men, 
they  were  obliged  to  lay  down  their  arms  at  San  Lucas  Springs, 
on  the  9th  of  May. 

In  making  his  preparations,  while  Secretary  of  War,  for  the 
surrender  of  the  Federal  army  stationed  in  the  South-west  of  the 
Union  into  the  hands  of  his  accomplices.  General  Floyd  had  not 
confined  his  operations  to  Texas,  where  Ave  have  seen  tiie  treason 
of  Twiggs  and  Van  Dorn  fully  successful.  He  had  sent  Colonel 
Loring  to  Santa  F6  to  take  command  of  the  regular  forces,  num- 
bering twelve  hundred  men,  stationed  in  New  Mexico,  with  Colonel 
Crittenden  as  second  in  command  ;  these  two  officers  were  entirely 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  South,  and  we  shall  soon  find  them 
again  with  Floyd  at  the  head  of  Confederate  armies.  The  news 
of  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war  only  reached  that  distant 


FORT  SUMTER.  155 

Territory  at  a  late  date ;  but  as  soon  as  it  was  received,  Loring 
and  Crittenden  set  to  work  to  withdraw  it  from  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Federal  government,  and  to  carry  with  them  the  troops 
which  had  been  confided  to  their  care.  But  as  it  had  occurred  in 
Texas,  the  soldiers  and  most  of  their  officers  nobly  resisted  the 
solicitations  of  those  faithless  chiefs,  who  failed  to  find  among  the 
settlers,  as  Twiggs  had  found,  an  armed  force  ready  to  assist  them. 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Roberts,  having  fathomed  their  schemes,  en- 
couraged and  directed  this  opposition ;  and  when  Loring  sought 
to  lead  the  forces  under  his  command  into  Texas,  the  officers  sta- 
tioned at  Santa  Fe,  Albuquerque,  and  at  Forts  Craig  and  Stanton 
refused  to  obey  him.  Notwithstanding  their  isolated  position, 
they  thus  succeeded  in  securing  New  Mexico  to  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment. Loring  and  Crittenden,  still  trying  to  conceal  their  in- 
tentions, then  took  refuge  In  Fort  Fillmore,  situated  at  the  south- 
ern extremity  of  that  Territory,  near  El  Paso  del  Norte,  where 
they  had  previously  massed  half  their  troops  under  command  of 
officers  upon  whom  they  could  more  thoroughly  rely.  Major 
Lynde,  who  was  in  command,  became,  either  through  incapacity 
or  connivance,  an  instrument  in  their  hands,  the  more  useful  on 
account  of  his  continued  professions  of  allegiance  to  the  Federal 
flag.  It  so  happened  that  during  the  month  of  July,  Lynde, 
having  gone  out  of  the  fort  for  the  purpose  of  dispersing  a  body 
of  Texas  partisans,  allowed  himself  to  be  shamefully  beaten  by 
them  near  Mesilla,  and  soon  after  he  was  ordered  by  Loring  to 
evacuate  the  fort  and  to  retire  towards  Albuquerque,  on  the 
Santa  Fe  route.  This  was  to  lead  his  troops  to  certain  de- 
struction. Nothing  was  neglected  to  secure  this  result.  The  can- 
teens of  the  soldiei-s  who  had  to  march  across  a  burning  plain 
were  filled  with  brandy.  The  Texans,  being  informed  of  their 
approach,  gathered  from  every  part  of  the  country  to  waylay 
them  on  their  passage.  The  Federals  left  on  the  evening  of  the 
1st  of  August ;  when,  tired  out  by  a  night-march,  and  most  of 
them  intoxicated  through  a  free  use  of  the  liquor  which  had 
been  perfidiously  administered  to  them,  they  reached,  at  day- 
break, the  ambuscade  towards  which  their  officers  were  leading 
them,  they  found  themselves  suddenly  surrounded  by  a  swarm  of 
enemies,  and  just  as  they  were  preparing  for  a  fight  they  were 


156  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ordered  to  la}'  down  their  arms.  Their  baggage  and  the  funds 
belonging  to  the  army  were  delivered  over  to  the  enemy,  who^ 
after  extorting  from  them  a  promise  not  to  serve  during  the  war, 
allowed  them  to  resume  their  march  in  the  direction  of  Albuquer- 
que. Deprived  of  all  that  was  needed  for  crossing  those  sterile 
regions,  abandoned  by  a  portion  of  their  officers,  overwhelmed  by 
the  treason  which  had  taken  away  their  arms,  those  unfortunate 
men  only  reached  their  place  of  destination  after  experiencing 
great  sufferings,  and  leaving  a  considerable  number  of  their  com- 
panions behind  amid  the  gloomy  solitudes  into  which  they  had 
been  driven. 

They  had  at  least  the  consolation  of  beholding  once  more  the 
national  flag,  and  of  meeting  comrades  at  Albuquerque  who  had 
remained  as  faithful  to  their  oaths  as  themselves.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  disaster.  New  Mexico  was  saved,  and  during  that  whole 
year  (1861)  the  Confederates  did  not  make  another  attempt  to 
dispute  its  possession  with  the  Federal  government. 

The  remoteness  of  the  States  that  are  to  be  the  theatre  of  war 
has  compelled  us  to  anticipate  for  a  while  the  chronological  order 
of  this  narrative.     We  hasten  to  return  to  it. 

In  Missouri  the  secessionists,  sustained  by  Governor  Jackson, 
had  become  even  bolder  since  the  capture  of  Fort  Sumter  than 
those  of  Maryland.  The  great  city  of  St.  Louis,  situated  near 
the  triple  confluence  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  and  the 
Illinois,  was  a  tempting  prize  for  them ;  they  were  above  all 
anxious  to  seize  the  Federal  arsenal,  situated  at  no  great  distance 
from  that  city,  and  containing  arms  and  ammunition,  of  which 
they  stood  in  great  need.  Since  the  end  of  April  more  than  ten 
thousand  men  had  been  raised  and  equipped  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  governor,  and  a  regiment  of  militia,  nearly  twelve 
hundred  strong,  was  encamped  at  the  very  gates  of  St.  Louis,  iu 
a  camp  destined  to  serve  as  a  centre  for  the  rebel  army.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  Federal  government,  there  was  in  St.  Louis  a  man 
of  energy  and  daring.  Captain  Lyon,  who  occupied  the  arsenal 
with  four  or  five  hundred  regular  troops.  Having  observed  for 
more  than  a  month  past  that  the  slaveholders  were  openly  organ- 
izing, he  had  made  his  own  preparations ;  the  Union  men  of  St. 
Louis  had  enrolled  themselves  to  the  number  of  more  than  six 


FORT  SUMTER.  157 

thousand,  mostly  German  emigrants,  in  a  corps  which  the  Fed- 
eral government  had  recognized,  and  which  ensured  the  safely  of 
the  arsenal.  On  the  10th  of  May,  Lyon  led  these  troops  secretly 
towards  the  rebel  camp,  surrounded  it,  and  captured  all  that  were 
there  without  striking  a  blow.  This  bold  stroke  frustrated  all 
the  plans  of  the  governor  and  his  accomplices,  and  caused  a  great 
sensation  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis.  The  soldiers  who  were  escort- 
ing the  prisoners  to  the  arsenal  were  assailed  by  a  large  crowd ; 
they  fired  upon  it  and  wounded  a  considerable  number  of  persons. 
On  the  following  day  the  exasperated  secessionists  returned  to  the 
charge,  and  musket  shots  were  exchanged  between  them  and  the 
troops.  But  the  efforts  of  the  rebels  proved  fruitless ;  order  was 
promptly  restored  in  St.  Louis,  and  that  great  city  was  wrested 
for  ever  from  the  Confederates.  It  Avas  three  days  after  this  that 
Butler  recaptured  Baltimore. 

The  occupation  of  these  two  cities  forms  an  important  era  in 
that  gloomy  period,  when  it  was  difficult  to  say  whether  the  coun- 
try was  at  peace  or  at  war,  for  it  finally  put  a  stop  to  the  progress 
of  the  rebellion.  At  the  East,  Baltimore  was  the  key  to  Wash- 
ington. In  the  West,  St.  Louis,  the  third  city  of  the  South  in 
population,  was  second  to  none  in  the  importance  of  her  military 
and  commercial  position.  In  the  hands  of  the  Federals,  she 
opened  to  them  the  gates  of  the  Mississippi,  which  flowed  di- 
rectly through  the  enemy's  territories ;  in  the  hands  of  the  Con- 
federates, she  would  enable  them  to  dispute  with  their  adversaries 
the  possession  of  the  great  States  of  the  North-west,  watered  by 
the  three  rivers  which  meet  at  St.  Louis.  The  leaders  of  the 
secession  movement  had  lost  these  two  important  positions  for 
want  of  promptness  and  vigor.  Being  themselves  astonished  at 
the  success  of  their  rebellion,  they  had  failed  to  take  advantage 
of  that  critical  moment  in  all  revolutions,  when  he  who  has  taken 
the  initiative  may  dare  and  accomplish  everything.  They  had 
allowed  themselves  to  be  forestalled  at  St.  Louis,  and  had  neglected 
to  make  use  of  the  four  weeks  during  which  Baltimore  was  in  pos- 
session of  their  friends,  to  bring  that  proud  city  irretrievably  to 
their  side,  garrison  it  with  troops,  and  place  it  in  a  state  of  defence. 
A  Massachusetts  lawyer,  an  improvised  general,  had  been  more 
clear-sighted  and  active  than  themselves. 


158  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

War  had  therefore  commenced,  but  it  was  a  local  war,  and  all 
along  the  line  which  separated  the  free  from  the  slave  States,  those 
who  were  friendly  neighbors  the  day  before,  having  become  enemies, 
mutually  watched  each  other,  not  yet  knowing  when  or  how  they 
should  come  to  blows.  The  capture  of  Baltimore  had  not  dis- 
couraged the  secessionists,  who  were  still  organizing  in  different 
counties  of  Maryland.  Virginia,  with  the  exception  of  the  west- 
ern counties,  was  in  full  rebellion ;  she  was  erecting  batteries  all 
along  her  coast  which  were  being  rapidly  armed ;  those  at  Sew- 
all's  Point,  in  front  of  Fortress  Monroe,  fired  upon  a  Federal 
vessel  on  the  19th  of  May,  while  those  which  were  in  process  of 
construction  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac,  threatened  to 
blockade  before  long  the  navigation  of  that  river,  through  which 
all  the  supplies  for  the  capital  were  obtained.  On  the  23d  of 
May,  while  the  majority  of  the  electors  of  Virginia  were  going 
through  the  idle  formality  of  voting  for  the  ordinance  of  separa- 
tion, which  had  been  put  in  force  without  waiting  for  their  ver- 
dict, the  militia  of  the  State  were  assembling  at  Harper's  Ferry 
to  occupy  that  important  point  permanently  and  complete  their 
organization.  Placed  under  the  command  of  Johnston,  one  of 
the  two  generals  of  that  name  who  a  month  before  had  left 
the  Federal  service,  they  served  as  a  nucleus  to  one  of  the 
armies  of  the  rebellion.  It  was  the  first  organized  corps  which 
threatened  the  Federal  authorities  at  Washington  and  in  Mary- 
land. 

Kentucky,  on  her  side,  was  still  hesitating,  and  her  alliance 
was  deemed  of  so  much  importance,  that  neither  of  the  two 
parties  dared  to  violate  her  neutrality,  for  fear  of  turning  her 
into  a  foe. 

The  slaveholders  of  Missouri,  despairing  of  their  ability  to 
compel  that  State  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  South,  were  endeav- 
oring at  least  to  exclude  the  Federals  from  it.  Sterling  Price, 
whom  we  have  already  met  in  New  Mexico,  and  of  whom  we 
shall  yet  have  frequently  occasion  to  speak,  wrested  from  the 
weakness  of  the  Federal  general  Harney  a  treaty  which  guaran- 
teed the  neutrality  of  that  vast  country ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  better 
advised,  refused  to  sanction  that  act. 

North  Carolina,  who  had  been  one  of  the  last  to  enter  the 


FORT  SUMTER.  159 

Union,  was  also  the  last  to  leave  it  to  join  the  Confederates;  but, 
being  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  latter,  she  allowed  herself  at 
last  to  be  carried  away,  and  on  the  20th  of  May  her  convention 
proclaimed  the  ordinance  of  secession. 

In  the  mean  while,  the  Montgomery  Congress  was  consolidating 
the  new  Confederacy  ^hich  it  represented,  and  adopting  stringent 
measures  to  prepare  for  war.  On  the  16th  of  May  it  had  ordered 
the  issue  of  paper  money  to  the  amount  of  twenty  million  dollars. 
On  the  21st  it  resorted  to  an  ingenious  experiment  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  its  financial  resources,  through  the  promulgation  of 
two  decrees.  The  purport  of  the  first  was  to  absolve  all  Southern 
merchants  from  the  obligation  of  paying  their  Northern  creditors, 
but  instead  of  cancelling  these  debts,  it  sought  to  appropriate  them 
to  its  own  profit.  As  may  be  imagined,  not  one  of  them  was 
willing  to  conform  to  this  requirement,  which  did  not  diminish 
their  burden,  but  left  them  under  the  weight  of  a  double  claim. 
The  object  of  the  second  decree  was  to  concentrate  in  the  hands 
of  the  government  all  the  power  which  the  ownership  of  cotton 
conferred.  It  reserved  to  itself  the  right  to  export  this  precious 
article,  either  by  sea  or  land,  to  the  exclusion  of  private  individu- 
als. It  purchased  the  cotton  from  the  latter,  and  paid  in  bonds, 
which  it  had  the  power  to  issue  in  unlimited  quantities ;  then  it 
sent  this  cotton  to  Europe  to  get  gold  in  exchange,  with  which 
to  procure  such  arms  and  outfits  as  it  might  require. 

This  lucrative  trade  could  not  be  entirely  prevented  by  the 
blockade ;  but  as  it  encountered  numerous  obstacles,  the  financial 
combination  of  the  Confederate  government  was  more  cleverly 
developed  at  a  later  period,  to  the  cost  of  English  capitalists,  by 
means  of  what  was  called  cotton  loans,  an  operation  through  which 
that  government  obtained  a  large  sum  of  money  in  specie  on  the 
London  Exchange — the  use  of  Avhich  we  shall  mention  hereafter 
— offering  as  a  sufficient  guarantee  those  cargoes  of  cotton  accu- 
mulated in  its  ports,  the  exportation  of  which  was  interfered  with 
by  Federal  cruisers. 

The  line  which  was  to  separate  the  belligerents  was  therefore 
beginning  to  be  distinctly  drawn.  The  insurgents  could  find  no 
more  national  property  upon  their  soil  to  seize ;  street  fights  had 
decided  the  fate  of  the  two  large  cities  wliich  they  might  at  first 


160  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

have  carried  with  them.  The  Federal  government  knew  thence- 
forth where  its  friends  and  foes  were  to  be  found — an  advantage 
which  had  been  dearly  bought,  it  is  true.  These  sad  preliminaries 
were  completed  before  the  end  of  May,  and  throughout  the  States 
where  secession  had  been  proclaimed,  the  Federal  flag  only  floated 
upon  three  isolated  poiiits  on  the  coast — Forts  Pickens,  Monroe, 
and  the  forts  on  the  twin  islands  of  Key  West  and  Garden  Key. 
In  one  word,  with  the  exception  of  two  tongues  of  sandy  land 
and  two  barren  rocks,  the  whole  of  that  immense  territory  was  to 
be  conquered  anew. 

Neither  of  the  two  governments,  however,  had  formed  an  exact 
idea  of  the  task  that  lay  before  it,  and  the  means  to  be  used  in 
order  to  accomplish  it.  Mr.  Davis  and  his  advisers  were  unable 
to  say  whether  a  single  victory  would  open  the  doors  of  the  White 
House  to  them  and  bring  the  disheartened  North  to  their  feet ; 
should  they  make  a  bold  attempt  to  carry  the  war  into  the  heart 
of  the  enemy's  country,  or  remain  everywhere  on  the  defensive  ? 
The  choice  for  them  between  these  two  kinds  of  tactics  depended 
upon  the  determination  and  moral  resources  of  their  adversary ; 
and  the  latter  did  not  even  know  them  himself.  The  duty  of  the 
Federal  government  was  clear:  the  insurrection  must  be  sup- 
pressed, but  there  w^as  no  precedent  to  enable  the  government  to 
appreciate  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking.  An  unconstitu- 
tional power,  organized  under  the  name  of  Confederate  govern- 
ment, had  seized  the  national  property,  and  resisted  the  collection 
of  custom-house  duties  and  the  execution  of  the  Federal  laws. 
Would  it  suffice  to  retake  possession  of  the  forts,  arsenals,  and 
mints ;  to  reinstate  the  custom-house  officers  and  drive  out  the  so- 
called  government  ?  Or  would  it  be  necessary  to  reconquer,  foot 
by  foot,  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Eio  Grande,  those  vast  regions 
of  country  which  the  largest  armies  would  be  inadequate  to  de- 
fend at  all  points  ?  Would  it  be  a  military  promenade  or  a  war 
of  conquest?  No  one  was  able  to  predict;  but  in  the  North,  as 
well  as  in  the  South,  the  impression  was  universal  that  the  war 
would  not  be  of  long  duration,  and  that  the  first  encounters 
would  settle  the  question ;  nobody  believed  that  the  volunteers 
summoned  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  serve  for  three  years,  or  during  the 
war,  would  see  their  terms  of  enlistment  expire  amid  the  din  of 


FORT  SUMTER.  161 

battle ;  neither  party  had  as  yet  formed  an  idea  of  the  sacrifices 
its  opponent  was  capable  of  making. 

Although  neither  government  was  yet  in  a  condition  to  under- 
take a  serious  war,  both  parties  were  anxious  for  hostilities  to 
commence. 

The  Confederate  Congress  on  its  adjournment,  May  23d,  had 
decided  to  meet  again  at  Richmond  on  the  20th  of  July.  On  the 
27th  of  May,  Mr.  Davis  removed,  with  all  his  government,  to 
the  capital  of  Virginia,  thus  binding  that  powerful  State  to  his 
cause  by  indissoluble  ties.  By  fixing  his  quarters  as  near  the 
Capitol  as  possible,  he  at  the  same  time  braved  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment, and  thereby  hastened  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities  on 
the  soil  of  the  State  which  had  so  imprudently  claimed  the  honor 
of  possessing  the  central  government  of  the  new  Republic.  So 
that,  while  in  the  West  the  efforts  of  the  secessionists,  confined  to 
the  sphere  of  partisan  warfare,  did  not  reach  beyond  the  right 
bank  of  the  Missouri,  while  Kentucky  was  waiting  for  the  de- 
crees of  fortune  to  regulate  her  course,  while  West  Virginia,  true 
to  the  Union,  was  removing  the  seat  of  war  from  the  borders  of  the 
Ohio, — the  position  of  the  two  hostile  capitals  rendered  it  necessary, 
for  their  mutual  protection,  to  concentrate  the  first  armies  within 
the  narrow  space  which  divided  them.  It  was  between  the  Potomac 
and  the  James  River  that  the  first  serious  engagements  must  nat- 
urally take  place. 

The  organization  of  a  body  of  troops  under  Johnston  at  Harper's 
Ferry  showed  that  the  Richmond  authorities  had  fully  understood 
this.  At  the  same  time,  and  with  all  possible  secrecy,  they  massed 
their  new  levies  at  Manassas  Junction,  which  has  become  so  cel- 
ebrated since.  These  two  points  protected  Richmond  from  all 
attack,  while  menacing  Maryland  on  one  side  and  Washington  on 
the  other.  Harper's  Ferry  was  the  key  to  the  great  valley  of  the 
Shenandoah,  which  penetrates  into  the  heart  of  Virginia,  and 
Johnston  was  thus  master  of  the  two  lines  of  railway  which 
branch  off  at  that  place — one  to  follow  the  course  of  the  Shenan- 
doah in  a  southerly  direction,  the  other,  the  right  bank  of  the 
Potomac  westward.  The  occupation  of  Manassas  Junction,  which 
is  only  forty  kilometres  from  Washington,  warranted  the  assump- 
tion that  the  first  battle  would  be  fought  nearer  this  city  than 

Vol.  I.— 11 


162  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Eidimond ;  it  gave  the  Confederates  control  of  the  only  railway 
which  connected  the  two  capitals,  and  of  a  branch  which,  pen- 
etrating by  way  of  Manassas  Gap  into  the  valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah, secured  easy  communication  with  Harper's  Ferry. 

The  Federal  government  was  likewise  preparing  for  the  strug- 
gle at  various  points  in  Virginia.  On  the  22d  of  May,  Butler 
arrived  at  Fort  Monroe,  where  he  soon  received  considerable  rein- 
forcements, for  the  importance  of  this  position  was  at  last  appre- 
ciated. He  found  there  a  number  of  negroes  who  had  run  away 
from  the  neighboring  plantations ;  being  in  want  of  laborers  for 
the  purpose  of  fortifying  the  approaches  of  that  place,  ho  em- 
ployed them  on  the  work,  giving  them  food  and  a  certain  amount 
of  wages.  Their  owners  came  to  claim  them.  This  incident 
thus  raised  at  the  outset  of  the  war  the  very  question  which  had 
been  the  cause  of  it.  To  surrender  the  slaves  would  have  clashed 
with  all  the  sentiments  of  equity  in  the  North,  who,  since  the  act  of 
secession  had  been  consummated,  no  longer  felt  under  any  obliga- 
tion to  make  those  concessions  to  the  South  which  she  was  ready 
to  grant  before,  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  the  Union ;  to  de- 
clare them  free  would  have  been  to  overstep  the  limits  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  programme,  who  did  not  feel  himself  justified  in  fight- 
ing the  insurgents  except  in  defence  of  the  Constitution,  and  not 
for  the  purpose  of  interfering  with  the  peculiar  institutions  of  the 
States.  Butler  had  always  been  politically  opposed  to  the  Repub- 
lican party ;  he  nevertheless  refused  to  surrender  the  fugitives,  and 
found  an  ingenious  method  of  setting  aside  the  question  of  prin- 
ciple by  declaring  that,  as  they  belonged  to  the  enemy  and  might 
be  employed  by  the  latter  in  constructing  military  works,  he 
seized  them  as  contraband  of  tear.  This  term  contraband  was 
afterwards  applied  to  those  negroes  who  came  to  seek  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Federal  flag,  even  after  their  emancipation  had  been 
proclaimed.  By  the  27th  of  May,  Butler  had  firmly  established 
himself  around  Fortress  Monroe  by  occupying  Newport  News, 
wliich  commands  the  best  anchorage  in  the  neighborhood. 

In  the  mean  time,  Washington  was  placed  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  coup  de  main  which  the  secessionists  had  been  contemplating 
for  the  last  six  weeks;  large  earthworks  had  been  thrown  up  on 
the  heights  which  surround  the  city  on  the  Maryland  side,  but 


FORT  SUMTER.  163 

these  were  not  sufficient  to  protect  it.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Potomac  there  is  another  range  of  hills  which  entirely  command 
the  capital  of  the  Union,  a  ragged  ground,  covered  with  magnif- 
icent forests,  where  the  movements  of  troops  may  easily  be  con- 
cealed. These  hills,  the  largest  of  which  is  crowned  by  Arlington 
House,  then  the  property  of  General  Lee,  slope  down  gradually  to 
the  edge  of  the  Potomac,  from  the  point  where  the  river  begins 
to  feel  the  influence  of  the  tide,  to  the  little  town  of  Alexandria, 
where  it  becomes  navigable  for  large  vessels.  They  are  connected 
with  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  by  a  bridge  of  the  Ohio  Canal 
at  GeorgetoAvn  and  the  Long  Bridge,  a  wooden  structure  situated 
in  front  of  Washington.  These  hills  were  formerly  a  part  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  a  Federal  territory  placed  under  the  exclu- 
sive jurisdiction  of  Congress,  but  all  the  right  bank  of  the  Poto- 
mac had  been  ceded  back  to  Virginia.  It  was  of  great  import- 
ance to  occupy  these  heights  and  fortify  them.  On  the  24th  of 
May  several  regiments  left  Washington  secretly,  and  took  posses- 
sion of  the  whole  chain  of  hills  from  Georgetown  to  Alexandria. 
Only  a  few  mounted  Confederates  were  seen  in  the  latter  city. 
The  population,  which  consisted  entirely  of  secessionists,  made 
but  a  feeble  resistance ;  but  Colonel  Ellsworth,  a  young  officer 
of  great  promise,  was  assassinated  while  in  the  act  of  hauling 
down  the  rebel  flag  from  the  top  of  a  house,  and  the  tragic  death 
of  this  officer,  the  first  news  of  the  kind  that  had  reached  the 
North,  caused  a  great  sensation.  The  Federal  troops  immediately 
set  to  work  to  fortify  the  positions  they  occupied ;  in  a  few  days 
they  covered  them  with  a  line  of  redoubts  and  breastworks,  wliich, 
although  constructed  in  haste,  were  nevertheless  sufficient  to  put 
them  in  a  state  of  defence.  In  proportion  as  the  volunteer  regi- 
ments arrived  in  Washington,  those  which  seemed  most  able  to 
take  the  field  were  forwarded  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac. 
There  was  at  last  stationed  near  the  capital,  if  not  an  army,  at 
least  a  vast  assemblage  of  armed  men.  The  command  of  these 
troops  was  conferred  on  General  McDowell,  who  had  long  held 
an  important  position  on  the  staff  of  General  Scott.  It  was  a 
difficult  task,  but  McDowell  possessed  as  much  experience  of 
military  affairs  as  it  was  possible  for  any  American  officer  to 
have  acquired ;  he  was  well  acquainted  with  his  profession,  and 


164  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  toe  much  good  sense  to  share  the  dekisions  entertained  by 
those  around  him,  regarding  the  qualities  of  his  soldiers. 

The  Richmond  government  displayed  extraordinary  activity  in 
its  efforts  to  place  in  the  field  forces  superior  to  those  that  McDow- 
ell had  at  his  disposal.  On  the  1st  of  June,  Beauregard,  Mvho 
since  the  capture  of  Sumter  had  become,  too  soon  for  his  own 
reputation,  the  favorite  general  of  the  South,  was  placed  in  com- 
mand of  the" so-called  department  of  Alexandria,  comprising  all 
the  tract  of  country  between  Richmond  and  Washington.  He 
found  a  little  army  already  assembled  at  Manassas  Junction.  On 
the  same  day  shots  were  exchanged  for  the  first  time  between  the 
two  parties  on  the  soil  of  Virginia.  A  detachment  of  regular 
Federal  cavalry  proceeded  as  far  as  the  village  of  Fairfax  Court- 
house, west  of  Alexandria,  and  dislodged  a  post  of  the  enemy 
from  it,  while  a  few  Confederate  guns  drove  off  a  Union  vessel 
which  was  trying  to  effect  a  landing  at  Aquia  Creek  ;  this  latter 
point,  situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Lower  Potomac,  is  the 
head  of  a  line  of  railway  leading  direct  to  Richmond  through 
Fredericksburgr. 

The  two  armies  felt  thenceforth  sufficiently  strong  to  defend 
the  positions  they  had  chosen,  but  neither  was  yet  in  a  condition 
to  assume  the  offensive.  It  was  a  little  more  to  the  westward,  in 
West  Virginia,  that  the  first  serious  engagements  were  to  take 
place.  This  district,  as  we  have  stated,  had  remained  loyal  to  the 
Union,  and  had  refused  to  submit  to  the  ordinance  of  separation 
which  had  been  voted  by  the  State  convention.  The  Richmond 
authorities  could  not  tolerate  this  secession  in  opposition  to  that 
which  they  had  just  proclaimed.  It  would  have  been  to  belie 
the  pretended  unanimity  of  the  South.  Reinforcements  were  sent 
across  the  Alleghanies  to  their  few  partisans,  who  had  already 
taken  up  arms,  and  the  militia  troops  of  Virginia  made  a  move- 
ment to  seize  the  only  railway  in  that  part  of  the  country,  the 
line  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  which  was  of  great  service  to  tha 
Federals  in  maintaining  communications  between  Pennsylvania 
an  1  the  Central  States.  This  was  more  than  sufficient  to  rouse 
the  latter  and  justify  their  intervention.  General  McClellan,  who 
waij  employing  his  rare  organizing  talents  in  forming  an  army  on 
the  borders  of  the  Ohio,  ordered  the  occupation  of  the  little  town 


FORT  SUMTER.  165 

of  Wheeling,  situated  at  the  extreme  north  of  West  Virginia,  and 
designated  as  a  place  of  rendezvous  for  those  who  resided  in  that 
section  of  country ;  soon  after  this  he  sent  the  few  troops  he  had 
then  at  his  disposal  to  occupy  the  points  it  was  most  important  to 
defend  south  of  that  town.  By  a  singular  coincidence.  General 
Lee,  destined  to  be  his  formidable  opponent  in  the  great  battles 
that  were  fought  around  Richmond  one  year  later,  was  ordered  to 
take  the  field  against  him  in  West  Virginia.  Lee  had  but  few 
troops,  and  met  with  no  support  among  the  inhabitants  upon  whom 
he  was  desirous  to  impose  the  rule  of  Mr.  Davis.  Nevertheless, 
appreciating  the  importance  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railway, 
he  had  despatched  Colonel  Porterfield  with  fifteen  hundred  men 
to  take  possession  of  that  line  at  Grafton.  On  the  approach  of 
the  Federals,  the  Confederates  abandoned  that  post  and  retired  to 
the  town  of  Philippi,  farther  south.  The  Unionists,  numbering 
about  five  thousand  men,  determined  to  take  Porterfield  by  sur- 
prise, and  in  order  to  surround  him,  they  formed  into  two  col- 
umns, which  started  on  the  evening  of  June  2d.  The  column 
having  the  least  distance  to  march  arrived  in  front  of  the  enemy's 
positions  on  the  morning  of  the  3d  ;  but  the  other,  having  wan- 
dered from  its  course,  instead  of  cutting  off  Porterfield's  retreat, 
struck  his  flank,  and  all  that  it  could  do  was  to  accelerate  his 
rout.  The  manoeuvre  attempted  on  this  occasion  by  the  Federals, 
for  the  purpose  of  surrounding  the  enemy,  became,  as  we  shall 
find,  the  favorite  strategy  of  all  the  improvised  generals,  who  were 
unable  to  devise  plans  for  a  campaign  except  on  paper.  They 
might  have  observed  on  this  occasion  how  hazardous  and  difficult 
of  execution  such  manoeuvres  are.  They  however  succeeded,  with 
little  loss  to  themselves,  in  clearing  a  considerable  portion  of  West 
Virginia,  and  especially  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway. 

This  trifling  success  increased  to  an  inordinate  degree  the  con- 
fidence of  the  other  Federal  commanders,  and  stimulated  their 
zeal.  Butler,  who  had  then  four  or  five  thousand  men  under  his 
command  around  Fortress  Monroe,  also  determined  to  try  his 
hand  at  a  battle.  The  peninsula,  narrow  and  intersected  by  deep 
and  marshy  streams,  which  separates  the  mouth  of  York  River 
from  that  of  the  James,  was  occupied  by  a  few  Confederate  troops 
under  the  command  of  Colonel  Magruder,  an  excellent  officer  who 


166  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  formerly  belonged  to  the  regular  army.  It  was  easy  for  them 
to  diefend  that  position,  and  the  Federals  had  no  interest  in  ex- 
tending their  lines  in  that  direction.  The  only  point  which  it 
would  have  been  of  advantage  to  them  to  possess  was  Yorktown, 
a  small  place,  celebrated  for  its  siege  and  the  capitulation  of  the 
British  army  under  Cornwallis,  for  it  commanded  the  entrance 
of  that  arm  of  the  sea  which,  under  the  name  of  York  River, 
runs  far  inland  in  the  direction  of  Richmond. 

Butler  must  have  known  that  Magruder  had  put  the  place  in 
a  state  of  defence,  and  that  he  could  not  capture  it  by  any  means 
short  of  a  regular  siege,  which  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  But  no 
concert  of  action  had  been  established  in  the  employment  of  the 
new  levies  M^hich  the  Federal  government  forwarded  in  haste,  to 
be  stationed  at  the  points  most  threatened ;  and  Butler  took  upon 
himself  the  responsibility  of  ordering  Magruder  to  be  attacked  in 
his  positions  in  front  of  Yorktown,  concerning  the  strength  of 
which  he  had  very  vague  information.  After  having  prepared 
the  plan  of  this  operation,  he  remained  in  person  at  Fortress 
Monroe,  and  entrusted  its  execution  to  General  Peirce,  who  took 
with  him  twenty-five  hundred  men  and  two  field-pieces.  This 
little  band  was  divided  into  two  columns — one  coming  from 
Fortress  Monroe,  and  the  other  from  a  camp  established  at  JSTew- 
port  News.  Having  started  during  the  night  of  the  9th-10th  of 
June,  they  were  to  meet  at  daybreak  at  the  village  of  Little  Bethel, 
where  they  expected  to  find  the  Confederates ;  they  did  in  fact  reach 
the  place  of  rendezvous  at  the  same  time,  but  the  enemy  was  not 
there ;  and  as  the  necessary  precautions  for  mutual  reconnaissances 
had  not  been  taken,  each  column  mistook  the  other  for  a  Confed- 
erate detachment;  they  immediately  commenced  firing  upon  each 
other,  and  many  fell  before  the  blunder  was  discovered.  On 
hearing  that  Magruder  w^as  waiting  for  him  at  Big  Bethel,  a 
short  distance  from  that  spot,  Peirce  went  out  to  attack  him. 
But  the  mistake  that  had  just  occurred  had  shaken  the  confidence 
of  his'  soldiers  and  the  few  regular  officers  who  accompanied  him ; 
the  latter  saw  at  once  that  with  such  inexperienced  troops  no  seri- 
ous operations  were  practicable.  Magruder,  with  eighteen  hun- 
dred men,  occupied  a  strong  position  in  front  of  Big  Bethel,  on 
the  borders  of  a  marshy  stream.     The  bridge  over  which  the  road 


FORT  SUMTER.  167 

from  Fort  Monroe  to  Yorktown  crossed  this  stream  was  defei  ded, 
in  llie  rear  of  the  obstacle,  by  two  small  earthworks,  upon  which 
were  mounted  a  few  field-pieces.  As  soon  as  the  Federals  showed 
themselves  openly  in  the  vicinity  of  the  swamps,  the  first  volley 
of  musketry  from  the  enemy  drove  them  into  the  adjoining  woods  ; 
it  took  their  leaders  more  than  two  hours  to  induce  them  to  return 
to  the  charge.  During  this  time,  their  three  guns,  ably  handled 
by  Lieutenant  Greble,  a  young  regular  officer,  keep  up  the  fight 
alone.  At  last  Peirce  attempts  a  serious  attack,  and  divides  his 
little  band  into  three  detachments.  A  portion  of  the  centre  de- 
tachment, led  by  a  few  regular  officers,  crosses  the  stream  and 
temporarily  dislodges  the  enemy  from  one  of  his  works,  but  it 
cannot  hold  that  position,  for  it  is  not  sustained  by  the  rest  of  the 
line,  where  the  greatest  confusion  prevails.  The  right  and  left 
columns  have  come  to  a  halt  in  front  of  the  stream — one,  because 
i'  considered  it  unfordable,  the  other  because  it  has  mistaken  one 
of  its  own  companies  for  a  body  of  the  enemy's  troops  threatening 
to  turn  it.  Peirce,  at  the  head  of  his  reserves,  boldly  crosses  the 
swamp  on  his  extreme  right,  but  in  vain ;  the  Confederates  con- 
centrate all  their  efforts  upon  him  and  drive  him  back.  The  at- 
tack was  a  failure ;  and  notwithstanding  the  insignificance  of  the 
losses,  the  soldiers  became  discouraged.  Fortunately  for  them,  a 
reinforcement  of  two  small  battalions  arrived  in  time  to  prevent 
their  retreat  from  degenerating  into  a  rout ;  and  Greble,  remain- 
ing to  the  last,  with  his  guns,  on  the  road  which  had  been  followed 
in  the  morning  by  the  assailants,  prevented  the  enemy's  artillery 
from  enfilading  them.  He  was  killed  while  protecting  his  com- 
panions. The  Federals  had  only  thirty-six  killed  and  thirty-four 
wounded,  many  of  whom  were  officers.  Greble  and  Major  Win- 
throp  were  among  the  former;  among  the  latter,  there  was  an- 
other regular  officer.  Captain  Ivilpatrick,  whose  name,  already 
mentioned,  will  frequently  occur  during  the  narrative  of  the  war. 
While  Peirce's  soldiers  were  rapidly  falling  back  upon  Fortress 
Monroe,  Magruder  felt  but  little  disposed  to  pursue  them,  and, 
laving  no  great  confidence  in  his  own  troops,  determined,  not- 
vithstanding  his  success,  to  fall  back  upon  Yorktown. 

Similar  engagements,  with  as  little  loss  of  life,  served  every- 
v^here  as  a  prelude  to  the  bloody  war  that  was  to  follow.     But 


168  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

those  of  which  Missouri  was  then  the  theatre  sufficed  to  secure 
to  the  Federals  the  possession  of  a  territory  as  large  as  five  or  six. 
French  departments.  On  the.  29th  of  May,  Lyon  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  Federal  troops  in  place  of  General  Har- 
ney, who  was  relieved  for  having  concluded  the  treaty  of  neutral- 
ity with  Sterling  Price.  The  State  of  Missouri  \vas  tlienccforth 
irrevocably  divided  between  the  Unionists  and  their  enemies.  Gov- 
ernor Jackson,  a  partisan  of  the  latter,  relied  upon  the  legislature 
and  on  Price,  M'ho  commanded  the  rebel  militia.  The  State  con- 
vention, on  the  contrary,  had  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  Union, 
and  it  was  in  consequence  of  its  decrees  that  the  volunteers  loyal 
to  the  Union  flocked  to  the  encampments  established  by  Lyon. 
On  the  12th  of  June,  Jackson  and  his  legislature,  which  had  as- 
sembled at  Jeftcrson  City,  on  the  Missouri,  the  official  capital  of 
the  State,  issued  a  real  declaration  of  war  against  the  Federal  au- 
thorities and  all  those  who  recognized  their  power.  Lyon  deter- 
mined to  answer  this  provocation  by  driving  them  out  of  the  city, 
and  thus  clearing  the  whole  course  of  the  Missouri.  A  detacll- 
ment  sent  by  him  as  far  as  Gasconade  River  having  made  his 
opponents  believe  that  he  was  following  the  railway  line,  they 
prepared  to  receive  him  on  that  side,  and  destroyed  all  the  bridges 
in  order  to  stop  his  progress.  But  instead  of  taking  that  route, 
Lyon  embarked,  with  two  thousand  men  and  all  the  necessary 
matiriel,  for  a  long  campaign,  on  board  two  large  steamers  ply- 
ing between  St.  Louis  and  New  Orleans.  He  thus  inaugurated 
a  method  of  waging  Avar  Avhicli  Avas  much  in  vogue  during  the 
subsequent  campaigns.  Price  and  Jackson,  surprised  by  this 
unexpected  movement,  abandon  Jeflcrson  City,  -Nvhere  the  Fed- 
erals arrive  on  the  15th  of  June,  and  retire  to  Booneville,  sit- 
uated sixty  kilometres  higher  u]>  on  the  Missouri.  Lyon  piu'sues 
them  on  board  his  vessels,  reaches  the  positions  occupied  by  the 
enemy  on  the  18th,  lands  his  soldiers,  and  vigorously  leads  them! 
to  the  attack;  after  a  short  engagement  he  throws  the  rebel  troo]  s 
into  confusion  and  disperses  them.  The  losses  at  the  battle  of 
Booneville  were  insignificant  on  both  sides,  but  the  Confederates^' 
being  utterly  disorganized,  were  obliged  to  retreat  southAvard  intc 
the  interior  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  leaving  Lyon  in  possessioi 
of  both  sides  of  the  river. 


FORT  SUMTER.  169 

In  West  Virginia  and  on  the  Upper  Potomac  both  parties  were 
keeping  up  the  war.  The  battle  of  Philippi  had  freed  the  north- 
western districts,  and  a  convention  assembled  at  Wheeling  in  West 
Virginia  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  that  section  of  country 
into  an  independent  State.  In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederates, 
having  taken  courage,  were  again  endeavoring  to  intercept  the  great 
Ohio  line  of  railway.  A  small  body  of  troops  had  been  collected 
at  Romney  to  menace  Cumberland  station,  on  that  line.  The  Fed- 
eral Colonel  Wallace,  Avho  occupied  this  place,  went  to  attack 
those  troops  at  Eomney,  took  them  by  surprise,  after  a  long  and 
difficult  night-march,  and  returned  after  having  dispersed  them. 
A  little  more  to  the  eastward,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Johnston's 
forces  were  increasing  at  a  rate  to  cause  great  uneasiness  to  the 
Federals.  In  the  beginning  of  June,  he  occupied,  with  more 
than  twelve  thousand  men,  the  formidable  position  of  Maryland 
Heights,  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Potomac,  which  enabled 
him,  while  covering  the  entrance  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  to 
extend  his  lines  into  Maryland  and  menace  Washington  or  Penn- 
sylvania. In  order  to  protect  the  latter  State,  General  Patterson 
had  assembled  all  the  available  volunteers  and  militia  at  Cham- 
bersburg.  When  his  forces  numbered  about  fifteen  thousand  men 
he  marched  toward  the  Potomac,  for  the  purpose  of  disturbing 
Johnston  at  Harper's  Ferry  in  his  turn.  The  little  confidence 
that  generals  like  Johnston  then  placed  in  their  troops  was  the 
cause  that,  during  the  early  stages  of  the  conflict,  marches  and 
counter-marches  played  a  more  important  part  than  actual  en- 
gagements, which  were  gladly  avoided  on  both  sides.  Fearing 
to  be  turned,  the  Confederate  general  evacuated  Maryland  Heights 
and  Harper's  Ferry  on  the  13th  of  June,  and  retired  to  Charles- 
,town,  a  short  distance  from  the  place  last  mentioned,  after  de- 
stroying the  Ohio  canal,  the  great  railway  bridge,  and  all  that 
had  escaped  the  conflagration  of  the  18th  of  April  in  the  arsenal. 
Patterson,  hastening  his  march,  with  nine  thousand  men,  forded 
the  Potomac  on  the  16th  of  June  near  Williamsport,  above  Har- 
per's Ferry,  which  he  occupied  shortly  afterwards.  This  move- 
ment should  have  enabled  the  Federals  to  take  possession  of  the 
whole  line  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway,  which,  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  crosses  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac.     In  order  to 


170  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

effect  tills,  it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  drive  Johnston  into 
Winchester  and  to  join  hands,  by  means  of  a  few  posts,  Avith 
Wallace's  troops  at  Cumberland;  but  the  hesitations  and  con- 
tradictory orders  of  the  government  at  Washington,  which  so 
frequently  embarrassed  the  operations  of  the  Federal  generals, 
caused  the  loss  of  all  the  advantages  that  had  been  gained  by  the 
occupation  of  Harper's  Ferry.  Patterson  had  scarcely  reached 
this  place  when  Scott,  always  anxious  for  the  safety  of  the  cap- 
ital, ordered  him  to  send  the  greatest  portion  of  his  forces  to 
Washington. 

Obeying  this  untimely  order  with  regret,  Patterson  was  obliged 
to  recross  the  Potomac  on  the  18th,  and  to  fall  back  upon  Mary- 
land, by  way  of  Williamsport,  with  about  ten  thousand  men 
scarcely  armed,  without  artillery,  and  without  cavalry.  His  re- 
treat left  Wallace  at  Cumberland  in  a  difficult  position,  and  em- 
boldened the  Confederates  who  had  assembled  in  the  Alleghany 
valleys,  which  open  on  the  Upper  Potomac. 

Four  thousand  of  them  again  occupied  Romney,  and  destroyed 
the  bridge  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway  at  New  Creek 
they  thus  cut  oflP  all  communication  between  Wallace  and  Mc- 
Clellan,  who  had  come  to  Grafton  on  the  23d  to  prepare  for  the 
serious  campaign,  of  which  West  Virginia  was  to  witness  the 
inauguration  fifteen  days  later.  But  although  threatened  on  all 
sides,  Wallace  succeeded  in  keeping  the  enemy  in  check  and  in 
maintaining  his  position. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Washington,  the  two  armies  watched  each 
other  at  a  distance  so  effectively  that  during  the  whole  month  of 
June,  they  only  once  exchanged  musket-shots.  On  the  17th,  an 
Ohio  regiment,  commanded  by  Colonel  McCook,  who  subsequently 
became  a  Federal  general,  was  making  a  reconnaissance  in  the. 
direction  of  the  village  of  Vienna,  but  instead  of  scouting  the 
road,  the  whole  regiment  got  into  open  cars  and  started  for  Vi- 
enna by  rail.  It  so  happened  that  a  Confederate  regiment,  com- 
manded by  Colonel  Gregg,  who  also  attained  the  rank  of  a  gen- 
eral afterwards,  was  passing  by  precisely  at  that  time,  and  on 
hearing  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive,  he  formed  an  ambuscade. 
Just  as  the  train  was  turning  a  curve,  it  received  a  discharge  of 
grape-shot  fired  by  two  guns  which  had  been  placed  on  the  track. 


FORT  SUMTER.  171 

Fortunately,  the  aim  of  the  guns  was  too  high ;  the  Federals 
sprang  to  the  ground,  formed  under  the  enemy's  fire,  and,  although 
taken  by  surprise,  finally  compelled  the  Confederates  to  retire, 
leaving  several  dead  and  many  more  wounded  behind  them.  One 
may  judge  from  this  incident  how  little  military  experience  there 
was  on  either  side. 

On  the  Lower  Potomac,  a  naval  officer.  Captain  Ward,  was  en- 
deavoring to  erect  a  battery  at  Mathias  Point,  a  long  promontory 
on  the  Virginia  side,  from  which  the  Confederates  fired  constantly 
upon  vessels  going  up  the  river,  either  with  rifle  or  cannon ;  but 
he  was  driven  off,  and  finally  lost  his  life  in  the  attempt. 

With  the  4th  of  July  we  shall  conclude  this  chapter,  which  is 
to  serve  as  a  transition  epoch  between  the  political  events  which 
followed  the  presidential  elections  and  the  veritable  acts  of  war, 
the  narrative  of  which  will  commence  presently. 

The  new  Congress  had  been  convened  for  the  4th,  and  at  the 
time  it  Avas  assembling,  the  volunteers  who  had  responded  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  calls  already  numbered  300,000  men.  Throughout  the 
Northern  States  regiments  were  being  recruited  and  organized. 
A  military  ardor  had  seized  all  minds. 

Before  taking  a  surv^ey  of  these  soldiers  at  their  work,  avc  pro- 
pose to  show,  in  the  following  chapter,  what  were  the  predominant 
characteristics  of  the  movement  which  improvised  the  Fe^leral 
armies. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS. 

IN  one  of  his  poetic  visions,  the  Prophet  Ezekiel  describes  a 
plain,  deserted  and  silent,  on  which  lie  innumerable  scattered 
and  dry  bones.  At  the  sound  of  his  voice  those  shapeless  remains 
come  spontaneously  together;  the  skeletons  resume  their  forms 
and  are  covered  anew  with  flesh ;  finally,  a  divine  word  from  the 
lips  of  the  inspired  spectator  restores  them  to  life ;  and  that  wil- 
derness, till  then  shrouded  in  the  darkness  of  death,  becomes 
peopled  with  an  animated  host.  The  rapidity  with  which  bat- 
talions of  volunteers  were  recruited,  assembled,  and  organized  in 
the  North  may  be  likened  to  the  sudden  uprising  of  those  mys- 
terious legions  taking  form  and  life  in  the  presence  of  the  He- 
brew prophet. 

The  hasty  creation  of  large  armies  among  the  States  loyal  to 
the  Union  w^as  no  less  strange  and  unlooked  for  than  the  miracle 
in  Holy  Writ.  Indeed,  the  little  army  which  we  have  seen  mak- 
ing war  in  the  Western  wilds  alone  preserved  military  traditions ; 
the  American  people  were  ignorant  of  their  labors  and  showed 
themselves  indifferent  to  their  successes.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
great  Eastern  cities  had  never  seen  a  company  of  regular  troops, 
and  all  they  knew  of  the  national  army  was  a  handful  of  inva- 
lids, the  solitary  guardians  of  the  Federal  forts.  All  that  related 
to  the  army  had  fallen  into  neglect,  and  while  the  other  branches 
of  the  government  at  Washington  occupied  marble  palaces,  the 
offices  of  the  War  Department  were  huddled  in  a  miserable  tene- 
ment. 

On  national  holidays,  however,  there  was  no  scarcity  of  uni- 
forms. On  such  occasions  the  veterans  of  1812  would  parade  in 
their  motley  costumes,  followed  by  militia  regiments  with  enor- 
mous bands  of  music  and  a  superfluity  of  officers.  But  these 
172 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  173 

troops,  which  at  a  later  period  ^vere  to  impart  lustre  to  the  numbers 
which  they  wore,  were  then  only  fit  for  parade-duty  and  utterly 
inexperienced  in  military  matters.  French  wit,  ever  facetious,  had 
seized  the  ludicrous  side  of  these  useless  displays  of  epaulets  and 
drums,  and  the  officers  of  the  Fifty-fifth  New  York,  who  in  the 
hour  of  danger  freely  shed  French  blood  in  the  cause  of  their 
adopted  country,  under  the  command  of  a  brave  and  able  chief, 
M.  de  Trobriand,  had  dubbed  themselves  at  one  of  the  regimental 
banquets  which  always  followed  such  demonstrations,  Gardes 
Lofourchettes,  or  Knife  and  Fork  Guards.  Charmed  by  a  showy 
procession,  the  multitude  mechanically  rehearsed  the  official  statis- 
tics, according  to  which  the  strength  of  the  national  troops  might 
reach  the  total  of  three  million  and  seventy  thousand  men.  If 
some  now  and  then  called  to  mind  the  behavior  of  the  militia  of 
1776  and  1812,  this  idea  was  as  quickly  dismissed  under  the 
conviction  that  the  troops  then  marching  past  would  never  have 
to  face  the  dangers  of  the  field.  Those  who  felt  a  natural  desire 
for  a  military  vocation  were  obliged,  like  Sherman,  to  seek,  as 
2)rofessors  in  the  special  schools  founded  by  the  Southern  States, 
an  opportunity  for  placing  their  knowledge  to  account. 

But  when  the  events  we  have  just  related  had  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  least  clear-sighted,  the  formation  of  an  army  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  Constitution  was  regarded  as  a  national  affair.  Every- 
body set  to  work  under  the  impression  that  the  part  of  duty  was 
to  act,  and  not  to  wait  for  instructions. 

The  adminstrative  system  of  America  leaves  a  large  part  to 
the  initiative  of  localities  and  individuals,  seldom  trammelled 
by  governmental  restrictions.  The  central  power  has  not  at 
its  command  an  army  of  public  functionaries  invested,  in  the 
eyes  of  a  docile  population,  with  an  almost  sacred  character ;  it 
does  not  possess  the  thousands  of  arms  which,  among  us,  stretch 
forth  at  a  given  signal  to  knock  simultaneously  at  every  citizen's 
door,  and,  if  need  be,  to  push  him  forcibly  by  the  shoulder.  A 
levy  being  once  sanctioned  by  Congress  or  proclaimed  by  the 
President  in  virtue  of  extraordinary  powers,  the  Federal  author- 
ities interfere  no  further  in  the  enlistments,  and  have  only  to 
receive  the  regiments  formed  in  the  several  States  according  to 
the  quota  assigned  to  each.     Nor  is  the  administrative  machinery 


174  TEE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  the  States  themselves  more  complicated.  The  constant  control 
exercised  by  the  citizens,  from  whom  the  magistrates  everywhere 
hold  their  authorityj  moderates  the  corrupting  influence  of  favor- 
itism— disguised  under  the  English  name  of  patronage — which 
the  continual  changes  of  elective  functionaries  tend  to  develop. 
So  that,  while  the  central  power  does  not  trammel  the  liberty  of 
the  local  authorities,  the  latter,  in  their  turn,  only  interfere  to 
direct  the  citizen  where  his  individual  action  is  no  longer  suf- 
ficient. The  President's  first  call,  therefore,  addressed  to  the  dif- 
ferent States  of  the  Union,  after  the  taking  of  Fort  Sumter,  was 
promptly  responded  to  by  all.  Patriotism,  ambition,  vanity,  and 
the  spirit  of  speculation,  entered  at  once  into  competition  and 
contributed,  though  unequally,  to  stimulate  the  national  move- 
ment. The  ingenious,  practical,  and  calculating  mind  of  the 
American  neglected  no  means  to  hasten  the  organization  of  the 
volunteer  corps  so  imperatively  demanded  by  the  national  danger. 
Recruiting-offices  were  opened  in  the  very  smallest  villages,  and 
soon  became  the  daily  rendezvous  for  the  entire  population ;  some 
from  love  of  adventure,  others  from  attachment  to  the  Con- 
stitution, others  still  from  a  desire  to  signalize  their  strong  anti- 
slavery  proclivities,  registered  their  names  as  common  soldiers. 
Those  who  possessed  sufficient  influence  undertook  to  raise  com- 
panies, sometimes  a  regiment,  and  not  unfrequently  a  whole  bri- 
gade. The  governor,  as  the  chief  of  the  executive  power  in  each 
State,  would  promise  to  this  or  that  lawyer  or  merchant  the  rank 
of  colonel  if  he  should  within  a  stipulated  period  of  time  succeed 
in  raising  a  regiment.  The  latter,  thus  provided  with  the  simple 
authority  for  an  operation  which  elsewhere  would  have  required 
the  concurrence  of  a  multitude  of  different  functionaries,  commu- 
nicates with  his  friends  and  appeals  to  the  public  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  country.  By  holding  out  the  promise  of  an  epaulet 
or  the  lucrative  monopoly  of  a  sutlership,  he  easily  finds  co-opera- 
tors, each  of  whom  undertakes  to  raise  him  a  certain  number  of  men. 
Gigantic  placards  posted  on  tlie  walls,  or  stretched  across  the  streets, 
enumerating  the  advantages  of  the  regiment  whose  ranks  are  to 
be  filled,  or  representing  on  canvas  amid  smoke  and  carnage  some 
heroic  deed  proposed  for  their  imitation,  invite  the  public  gaze. 
But  the  martial  instincts  of  the  people  are  not  the  only  passions 


THE  FEDERAL    VOLUNTEERS.  175 

appealed  to.  The  new  recruits  are  paraded  in  the  streets  to  daz- 
zle and  attract  by  their  showy  uniforms ;  that  of  the  zouaves — - 
although  often  unseemly  when  hanging  ungracefully  on  the  bony 
frames  and  lank  limbs  of  some  stalwart  American — having  the 
greatest  success.  A  certain  regiment  of  heavy  artillery,  which 
proved  afterwards  one  of  the  most  efficient  at  the  terrible  battle 
of  Gettysburg,  sought  to  increase  the  number  of  its  recruits  by 
an  announcement  which,  although  not  to  be  taken  in  a  literal 
sense,  is  nevertheless  worthy  of  record  as  offering  the  strangest 
of  all  inducements  to  future  soldiers.  It  ran  thus :  "  As  this 
regiment  is  to  be  constantly  garrisoned  in  the  forts  around  Wash- 
ington, those  anxious  to  enter  the  military  service  will  find  in  it 
the  inestimable  advantage  of  exemption  from  the  hardships  and 
privations  incidental  to  camp-life."  On  the  contrary,  the  remem- 
brance of  the  panic  which  overtook  some  Indiana  troops  at  the 
battle  of  Buena  Vista  having  always  been  preserved  in  that  State, 
which  has  often  been  taunted  with  it,  several  volunteer  regiments 
inscribed  the  following  words  on  their  programmes,  "  Remember 
Buena  Vista  !"  thereby  promising  to  wipe  out  that  stigma  by  their 
conduct  on  new  battle-fields. 

Individual  initiative  at  times  sought  to  act  independently  even 
of  the  feeble  control  of  the  State  authorities.  Some  regiments 
were  offered  directly  to  the  President  by  those  who  had  raised 
them.  Such  was  the  Excelsior  Brigade,  composed  of  five  regi- 
ments raised  in  New  York  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  by  Mr. 
Sickles,  a  former  diplomat.  The  governor  of  the  State  insisted 
upon  their  forming  a  part  of  his  contingent,  but  Mr.  Sickles,  in 
order  to  evade  his  authority,  assembled  his  brigade  in  a  fort  then 
under  the  Federal  jurisdiction,  and  set  out  shortly  afterward  for 
Washington.  The  quarrel  was  of  long  duration,  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  at  last  induced  by  general  representations  to  incorporate  all 
independent  troops  into  the  particular  contingents  of  the  States  in 
which  they  had  been  raised.  This  was  but  justice;  for  if  those 
regiments  had  not  been  included  in  the  quota  of  each  of  those 
States,  their  competition  would  have  raised  the  enlistment  boun- 
ties, lessened  the  number  of  available  men,  and  thus  hastened  the 
period  when  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  resort  to  conscrip- 
tion.    But  by  the  time  this  question  was  settled,  the  Excelsior 


176  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Brigade  had  already  been  reduced  by  the  enemy's  fire  and  the 
hardships  of  war  to  one-half  of  its  original  strength. 

A  few  days  sufficed  to  prove  that  the  generous  indignation 
aroused  in  the  North  by  the  tidings  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Sum- 
ter was  not  a  mere  momentary  effervescence,  but  the  firm  resolve 
of  the  people  to  sustain  their  words  by  deeds. 

Thanks  to  the  different  simple  and  expeditious  methods  of  pro- 
ceeding we  have  just  described,  soldiers  were  pouring  in  from  all 
parts.  As  may  well  be  supposed,  the  most  varied  specimens  of 
civilized  humanity  presented  themselves  at  the  recruiting-offices ; 
but,  generally  speaking,  the  volunteers  who  responded  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  first  call  for  troops  were  very  inferior  in  quality  to 
those  who  composed  the  subsequent  levies.  As  the  middle  or 
working  classes  of  the  North  had  not  yet  recognized  the  duty  of 
quitting  their  respective  occupations  for  the  battle-field,  these 
volunteers  were  for  the  most  part  picked  up  among  the  unem- 
ployed, both  in  town  and  country.  They  were  without  discipline, 
for  their  too  brief  term  of  enlistment  prevented  them  from  en- 
tering seriously  into  the  spirit  of  their  profession,  and  they  had 
no  idea  of  the  trials  and  hardships  for  which  a  soldier  should 
always  be  prejDared.  They  greatly  resembled,  in  short,  those 
militia  troops  that  had  caused  so  much  anxiety  to  General  Wash- 
ington during  the  War  of  Independence.  Some  even  went  so  far 
as  to  abandon  their  posts  on  the  eve  of  an  engagement,  because 
the  precise  hour  at  which  their  term  of  enlistment  expired  had 
struck.  The  army  assembled  at  Washington  under  McDowell  in 
June,  1861,  was  mainly  composed  of  such  men. 

The  magnitude  of  the  danger,  at  last  apparent,  called  out  a 
second  levy,  which  rallied  around  the  flag  a  very  different  class 
of  men.  It  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  three  months'  excursion  or 
a  mere  military  demonstration ;  those  who  then  enlisted  for  three 
years  were  fully  aware  of  the  sort  of  life  they  were  entering  upon, 
and  what  perils  they  would  have  to  encounter.  Whether  actuated 
by  patriotism  or  the  love  of  adventure,  or  influenced  by  the  hope 
of  gain,  they  one  and  all  embraced  their  new  profession  with  a 
firm  and  jesolute  determination.  Good  soldiers  they  were  not  — 
indeed,  they  were  scarcely  soldiers — but  they  were  honest  in  their 


THE  FEDERAL    VOLUNTEERS.  177 

desires  to  become  such,  and  this  was  the  surest  way  of  attaining 
that  end. 

The  enh'stment  fever,  as  it  was  called  in  America,  had  spread 
all  over  the  country,  and  the  recruiting-agents  appointed  every- 
where to  receive  enlistments,  stimulated  by  the  spirit  of  competi- 
tion, vied  with  each  other  in  zealous  endeavors  to  complete  the 
contingents  of  their  respective  districts.  The  city  artisan  and  the 
husbandman  laid  down  their  implements  to  put  on  the  uniform, 
nor  did  the  aristocratic  hands  of  the  man  born  in  affluence  fear  to 
handle  a  musket  in  defence  of  the  laws.  Side  by  side  with  these 
M'ere  assuredly  other  men  who  had  enlisted  from  motives  less 
pure.  The  reaction  of  the  political  crisis  upon  commercial  enter- 
prise had  caused  the  suspension  of  certain  industries,  and  as  we 
have  observed  before,  the  Confederate  government,  whose  chief 
had  already  become  notorious  through  the  great  bankruptcy  of  the 
State  of  Mississippi,  had  repudiated  all  indebtedness  to  the  North, 
to  the  ruin  of  numerous  families  whose  sons  had  no  other  means 
left  tliem  for  earning  a  livelihood  but  to  enlist.  Besides  the  pay, 
which  was  enormous,  the  volunteers  were  promised,  as  in  former 
times,  land  bounties  at  the  expiration  of  their  term  of  service — a 
wise  measure  which  induced  many  workingmen  to  enter  the  army 
by  ensuring  to  them  the  certain  means  of  existence  at  the  end  of 
the  war.  Lastly,  the  recruiting-office  opened  a  new  field  to  that 
unfortunate,  restless,  and  ambitious  population  which  America 
renders  Europe  the  good  service  to  absorb  as  fast  as  she  receives 
it,  and  which,  like  foam  upon  the  waters,  floats  for  a  time  in  the 
large  cities  of  the  Union,  and  is  ultimately  lost  in  the  great  cur- 
rent which  bears  it  towards  the  far  West. 

In  the  same  city,  each  class  of  volunteers  would  adopt  particu- 
lar regiments  by  preference.  The  Irish,  pugnacious  by  instinct, 
organized  several  of  them  in  the  seaboard  cities,  it  being  natural 
that  the  same  inclination  which  prompts  so  many  of  them  to 
enter  the  British  army  should  have  been  even  more  potent  in 
drawing  them  into  the  service  of  the  country  they  had  adopted 
of  their  own  free  will.  While  serving  it,  however,  they  were  in- 
fluenced by  strange  delusions  artfully  encouraged  by  designing 
men,  who  took  advantage  of  their  credulous  imaginations.  A 
great  many  Irishmen,  in  fact,  looked  upon  the  war  as  nothing 

Vol.  I.— 12 


178  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

more  than  a  favorable  opportunity  for  preparing  to  crush  England. 
The  more  enlightened  among  them  were  doubtless  aware  of  the 
fallacy  of  such  dreams,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Constitution 
they  were  about  to  fight  for  could  scarcely  be  an  object  of  such 
devotion  for  them  as  for  citizens  of  American  birth.  But  the 
green  flag  of  old  Erin,  given  to  them  as  a  distinguishing  mark, 
proved  a  powerful  attraction,  and  the  sight  of  it  on  the  battle- 
field had  the  effect  of  adding  fresh  vigor  to  their  courage.  It 
is  necessary  to  have  passed  through  the  trials  of  exile  to  com- 
prehend the  magic  influence  exercised  on  the  heart  of  man  by 
every  symbol  of  his  distant  native  land,  and  among  them  the 
most  expressive  of  all,  the  national  flag. 

In  like  manner,  citizens  of  German  descent  or  of  German 
birth,  still  adhering  to  their  mother-tongue,  although  identified 
with  America,  without  any  intention  of  ever  returning  to  their 
native  lan^,  and  generally  without  regrets,  grouped  together  in 
special  regiments  where  they  could  foster  the  traditions  and  usages 
which  life  in  the  New  AVorld  never  caused  them  to  forget. 

The  French,  comparatively  few  in  that  land  which  is  overrun 
by  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Germanic  races,  swelled  the  ranks  of  the 
La  Fayette  Guards,  and  subsequently  of  the  Enfants  Perdus,  in 
both  of  which  organizations  they  worthily  sustained  the  honor  of 
the  red  pantaloons,  the  distinguishing  mark  of  our  army.  A  few 
of  our  compatriots,  driven  to  America  either  by  the  chance  of 
revolutions,  or  by  a  desire  to  serve  the  cause  of  liberty,  had  rank 
conferred  upon  them  in  the  Federal  army,  which  enlisted  all  their 
sympathies ;  they  were  thus  able,  under  the  protection  of  a  flag 
ever  friendly  to  the  France  of  other  days  as  to  the  France  of  the 
present  time,  to  forget  the  quarrels  by  which  they  were  divided. 
The  contingent  of  the  Latin  races  was  completed,  without  being 
much  increased,  by  the  addition  of  a  small  number  of  Spaniards, 
Portuguese,  and  Italians. 

The  dregs  of  the  large  cities  were  gathered  into  a  few  regiments 
with  brilliant  costumes,  but  somewhat  lax  in  discipline  if  report 
may  be  credited.  It  was  observed  that  the  average  of  crime  in 
the  great  city  of  New  York  decreased  by  one-half  after  the  de- 
parture of  the  Wilson  Zouaves.  The  volunteer  fire  companies 
of  New  York,  proverbial  for  their  turbulence,  quitted  for  a  time 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  179 

the  service  of  the  corporation  to  organize  a  regiment  of  Fire 
Zouaves. 

But  let  us  hasten  to  reduce  to  their  proper  j^roportions  these 
details,  which,  striking  the  eyes  of  Europeans  recently  landed, 
may  have  led  them  to  form  erroneous  opinions  of  the  American 
army.  In  spite  of  all  they  could  say,  it  was  an  essentially  national 
army,  both  in  sentiment  and  in  the  materials  of  which  it  was  com- 
posed. The  soldiers  for  the  most  part  were  animated  by  a  sincere 
desire  to  serve  the  national  cause,  and  the  proportion  of  different 
elements  which  constituted  its  strength  accurately  represented  the 
whole  American  nation. 

A  thousand  examples  might  be  cited  of  soldiers  and  officers 
who  sacrificed  lucrative  positions  to  join  the  regular  army.  The 
records  of  war-victims  abound  with  the  names  of  wealthy  and 
honored  citizens,  not  a  few  of  whom  were  advanced  in  years  and 
surrounded  by  a  numerous  family.  Side  by  side  with  the  old 
West  Pointers  who  had  resumed  the  military  harness  were  men 
possessed  of  no  practical  military  knowledge,  but  who,  like  Wads- 
worth,  Shaw,  and  many  others,  were  at  least  determined  to  set  an 
example  of  the  cause  which  finally  cost  them  their  lives.  Many 
American  villages  displayed  the  same  disinterestedness  as  Phoenix- 
ville,  in  Pennsylvania,  which,  almost  exclusively  inhabited  by 
blacksmiths,  the  least  skilful  of  whom  could,  during  the  war,  earn 
in  a  week  more  than  a  soldier's  pay  for  a  month,  alone  furnished 
an  entire  company. 

Individual  examples  may  always  be  set  aside,  yet  it  would  be 
easy  to  prove,  in  a  general  way,  that  the  rapidity  of  enlistments 
is  to  be  attributed,  not  to  want  of  work,  but  to  earnest  patriotism. 
If  a  few  branches  of  industry  had  to  suspend  operations,  busi- 
ness in  general  was  but  little  affected  by  the  shock  of  the  war ;  if 
the  Federal  flag  experienced  reverses,  the  chief  occupation  of  the 
laboring  population  of  America — the  cultivation  of  cereals — con- 
tinued to  flourish;  and  although  a  few  families  were  ruined,  the  New 
World  was  not  afflicted  for  a  single  day  with  the  pauperism  which 
stalks  abroad  in  the  most  civilized  States  of  Europe.  Wages,  al- 
ready very  high,  increased  in  proportion  as  the  ranks  of  the  army 
were  filling  up,  rendering  workmen  scarce.  The  constant  increase 
in  the  rate  of  bounties  shows  that,  in  a  purely  business  point  of 


180  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

view,  the  salaries  paid  in  civil  employments  competed  favorably 
with  army  enlistments,  while  the  bounties  themselves,  so  far  as 
regarded  the  immense  majority  of  volunteers,  afforded  but  a 
meagre  compensation  for  the  sacrifices  they  made.  In  a  country 
where  every  able-bodied  man  can  easily  earn  a  living,  and  where 
the  products  of  the  soil  are  so  abundant  as  to  admit  of  an  almost 
indefinite  advance  in  wages,  the  government  could  never  have  held 
out  sufficient  inducements  to  attract  the  six  hundred  thousand 
men  who  in  a  single  year  responded  to  its  call,  if  a  large  majority 
of  them  had  not  been  actuated  by  sterling  patriotism. 

This  army  was  as  national  in  its  composition  as  it  was  in  spirit, 
representing  in  due  proportion  the  various  elements  of  the  Amer- 
ican population.  It  has  indeed  been  urged  that  foreigners  pre- 
dominated in  its  ranks  ;  this  is  a  great  mistake,  but  easily  suscep- 
tible of  explanation,  from  the  fact  that  the  German  accent  and  the 
Irish  brogue  frequently  struck  upon  the  ear  wherever  the  volun- 
teers were  collected. 

Yast  regions  in  Pennsylvania  were  settled  by  Germans  even  be- 
fore the  War  of  Independence,  and  its  inhabitants  to  this  day  speak 
a  Germanic  patois;  but  notwithstanding  their  nickname  of  Dutch- 
men, applied  to  them  by  their  Anglo-Saxon  neighbors,  they  are 
just  as  much  Americans,  in  every  sense  of  the  term,  as  the  latter. 
Those  who  still  continue  to  emigrate  for  the  purpose  of  clearing 
the  virgin  forests  of  the  New  World  become  Americans  while 
engaged  in  fertilizing  the  soil,  precisely  as  their  predecessors  did 
long  ago.  The  hundreds  of  thousands  of  emigrants  who  arrive 
yearly,  and  who  by  their  labor  increase  the  wealth  of  the  country 
and  extend  the  boundaries  of  civilization,  acquire  thereby  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  and  are  as  much  interested  in  the  greatness 
and  good  government  of  their  adopted  country  as  the  descendants 
of  the  old  colonists.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  ties  which 
bound  the  emigrant  to  that  country,  the  foreign  element  was  not 
proportionately  represented  in  the  composition  of  the  national 
army.  The  soldiers  born  on  American  soil  were  more  numerous 
than  if  the  army  had  been  recruited  by  a  draft  bearing  equally 
on  all  the  citizens  of  the  Union. 

A  few  figures  will  suffice  to  confirm  this  assertion.     Of  the 
volunteers  who  enlisted  during  the  first  year,  only  one-tenth  were 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  181 

foreigners ;  of  the  remainder,  two-thirds  were  born  on  American 
sc'A,  and  seven-thirtieths,  or  rather  less  than  one-fourth,  were  nat- 
uralized Europeans.  By  examining  separately  the  contingents  of 
the  Eastern  States,  where  but  a  small  number  of  emigrants  settle, 
we  find  a  still  larger  proportion  of  natives — a  proportion  which 
in  1864,  when  conscription  was  partially  resorted  to,  reached  as 
high  as  eighty  per  cent.  This  army,  two-thirds  of  which  con- 
sisted of  native  Americans,  and  only  one-third  of  foreigners,  was 
raised  out  of  a  population  of  about  19,000,000  souls.  In  order 
to  ascertain  which  of  these  two  elements  supplied  the  largest  pro- 
portion of  men,  we  have  only  to  compare  the. number  of  able- 
bodied  men  that  each  of  them  was  able  to  contribute.  The  statis- 
tics of  1860  render  this  comparison  impracticable;  but  the  census 
of  1863,  taken  in  the  loyal  States  preparatory  to  the  conscription, 
gave  upwards  of  3,100,000  as  the  number  of  men  between  the 
ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five  years.  By  adding  900,000  more, 
the  maximum  number  of  soldiers  then  in  actual  service  or  dis- 
abled, it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that  the  class  which  in  1861  con- 
tributed exclusively  to  the  recruitment  of  the  army  did  not  ex- 
ceed 4,000,000.  With  the  help  of  the  emigrant  rolls,  it  is  easy 
to  calculate  how  many  of  these  were  born  in  America  and  how 
many  in  Europe.  During  the  decade  from  1849  to  1858  the 
United  States  received  3,000,000  new-comers,  1,200,000  of  whom 
were  women  and  1,800,000  men;  1,370,000  of  the  latter  being 
over  fifteen  and  under  thirty-five  years  of  age.  Deducting  8000 
from  this  number,  which,  according  to  the  tables  of  mortality,  is 
the  decrease  of  that  population  since  its  arrival  in  America,  we 
find  that  emigration  had,  in  the  course  of  ten  years,  brought  over 
to  that  country  1,362,000  men,  who,  when  the  levies  of  volunteers 
took  place,  were  still  living  and  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
thirty-eight,  and,  consequently,  forming  part  of  the  4,000,000 
among  whom  the  American  army  was  recruited.  This  number 
already  exceeds  by  31,000  the  third  of  those  4,000,000 ;  but  in 
order  to  make  our  statement  complete,  we  should  add  thereto  the 
number  of  Europeans  who  in  1861  were  between  thirty-eight  and 
forty-five  years,  as  well  as  those  who  at  the  time  of  their  landing 
before  1849  were  under  thirty-three  years  of  age,  inasmuch  as 
both  categories  were  comprised  in  the  4,000,000.     We  see,  there- 


182  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

fore,  that  those  of  European  birth  constituted  considerably  more 
than  one-third  of  the  effective  male  population  of  the  Northern 
States,  while  they  only  entered  in  just  the  same  proportion  of  one- 
third  into  the  composition  of  the  army,  thus  leaving  to  the  native 
Americans  the  largest  proportion  in  the  aggregate  representation 
of  races. 

We  are  not  in  possession  of  the  necessary  documents  to  con- 
tinue this  comparison  by  ascertaining  the  number  of  those  emi- 
grants who  became  naturalized,  and  those  who  retained  their  con- 
dition of  aliens ;  such  a  comparison  would,  however,  be  of  little 
value.  Naturalization  is  so  easily  obtained  in  the  United  States 
that  after  a  few  years'  residence  in  the  country  nearly  every  per- 
son settled  in  business  exercises  the  rights  of  citizenship. 

It  was  only  when  the  conscription  attached  onerous  duties  to 
the  exercise  of  these  rights  that  people  who  had  enjoyed  them  en- 
deavored to  discover  informalities  in  their  naturalization  papers, 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  obligations  devolving  upon  Americans. 
All  emigrants  who  have  left  Europe  without  any  intention  of  re- 
turning— sans  esprit  de  retour,  as  the  French  law  tersely  expresses 
it — should,  in  reality,  be  reckoned  as  Americans,  the  number  of 
those  who  persist  in  preserving  their  nationality  unimpaired  being 
altogether  insignificant. 

Strictly  speaking,  those  belonging  to  the  latter  category  alone, 
and  the  recruits  obtained  from  outside  the  territory  of  the  Repub- 
lic, could  be  considered  as  foreigners,  among  the  Federal  soldiers. 
The  Federal  government  could  only  have  introduced  a  large  for- 
eign element  into  the  ranks  of  its  army  by  enticing  volunteers 
from  Europe  or  from  countries  adjacent  to  the  United  States. 
Now,  notwithstanding  the  close  vigilance  with  which  all  the  ac- 
tions of  that  government  were  watched,  its  enemies  never  could 
prove  that  such  enlistments  had  been  made  on  its  account  upon 
any  large  scale ;  there  was  seen  nothing  in  America  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  foreign  legion  organized  by  England  for  the 
Crimean  War.  The  navy  may  indeed  have  picked  up  a  handful 
of  sailors  from  the  coasts  of  France  or  England,  or  it  may  have 
received  a  few  of  the  deserters  which  every  European  ship  drops 
into  the  ports  of  the  New  World.  Doubtless,  also,  some  English 
soldiers  from  the  garrisons  of  Canada  may  have  crossed  the  fron- 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  183 

tier,  allured  not  only  by  the  bounties  and  high  pay,  but  also  by 
the  hope  that  their  military  ex^jerience  would  secure  them  posi- 
tions among  such  raw  troops.  It  was  easy  to  recognize  under 
the  Federal  uniform  the  old  English  soldier  by  his  unexception- 
able bearing,  his  polished  arms,  and  the  precision  of  his  move- 
ments. If  not  disqualified  by  drunkenness,  he  soon  became  drill- 
sergeant  or  sergeant-major ;  if  able  to  read  and  write,  the  epaulet 
was  within  his  easy  reach.  These,  however,  were  only  isolated 
instances.  It  is  true  that  recruiting  agents,  hoping  to  make  a 
profit  on  the  bounties,  went  to  Canada  and  Ireland  to  decoy  re- 
cruits in  spite  of  the  Federal  government,  and  that  they  engaged 
emigrants  to  come  over  in  the  name  of  fictitious  industrial  asso- 
ciations, expecting  to  entice  them  into  the  service  after  they  had 
landed,  partly  of  their  own  free  will,  partly  by  force ;  but  the 
measures  taken  in  New  York  and  elsewhere  to  protect  these  emi- 
grants against  the  impositions  of  which  they  were  formerly  the 
victims  enabled  them  to  free  themselves  as  soon  as  the  fraud  was 
discovered.  This  was  the  case  with  most  of  them ;  and  although 
the  recruiters  were  always  on  the  watch  to  entrap  the  most  des- 
titute among  those  whom  want  had  driven  from  Europe  to  the 
American  shores,  they  were  less  successful  with  these  new-comers 
than  with  those  who  had  been  for  some  time  settled  in  the  United 
States. 

We  may  therefore  sum  up  all  these  details  by  affirming  that, 
from  the  native-born  American  down  to  the  latest-landed  Euro- 
pean, the  proportion  of  volunteers  furnished  to  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment by  the  different  classes  of  the  community  was  in  a  direct 
ratio  to  the  interest  that  each  took  in  the  affairs  of  the  Republic, 
and  that  the  longer  the  emigrant  had  lived  upon  its  soil,  the  more 
largely  did  he  contribute  toward  its  defence. 

It  must  not  be  imagined,  therefore,  that  the  increase  of  emi- 
gration, so  remarkable  during  the  war,  was  a  means  of  directly 
supplying  the  Federal  armies.  It  was  an  indirect  result  due  ta 
the  sudden  advance  in  the  price  of  labor  occasioned  by  the  war. 
The  difference  in  the  rate  of  wages  between  the  two  contineuts  is 
the  sluice  which  regulates  with  precision  the  current  of  emigra- 
tion; and  the  new-comers,  instead  of  swelling  the  ranks  of  the 
army,  went  for  the  most  part  to  fill,  either  at  the  plough  or  in 


184  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  factories,  the  places  of  the  Americans  Avho  had  put  on  the 
uniform. 

It  is  by  the  average  age  of  the  soldiers  that  national  armies  are 
most  readily  distinguished  from  mercenary  troops.  An  army  of 
mercenaries  is  made  up  of  men  who  make  a  trade  of  warfare, 
serving  for  a  livelihood  and  enlisting  from  motives  of  interest ; 
the  larger  their  number  the  higher  the  average  of  age.  A  na- 
tional army,  on  the  contrary,  is  recruited  in  equal  proportions 
among  all  the  youth  of  the  country,  as  well  from  voluntary  as 
from  forced  service.  Now,  the  average  age  of  the  volunteers  who 
enlisted  in  America  before  any  conscription  had  taken  place  was 
between  twenty-four  and  twenty-five  years,  or  the  same  as  that 
of  our  own  soldiers  before  it  was  raised  above  this  figure  by  the 
exoneration  law  and  the  multiplicity  of  substitutes.  The  larger 
or  smaller  proportion  of  Europeans,  or  at  least  of  men  recently 
from  Europe,  in  the  contingents  of  the  several  States,  was  made 
manifest  in  the  military  statistics  by  a  remark  we  may  be  allowed 
to  quote,  as  throwing  a  curious  light  upon  the  movements  of  the 
populations  that  elbow  one  another  for  a  long  time  in  America 
before  they  become  finally  mingled.  Nothing,  in  fact,  appears 
more  strange,  at  first  sight,  than  the  comparison  of  the  average 
statures  in  the  contingents  of  the  several  States,  as  shown  by  the 
tables  published  at  the  end  of  the  war,  at  a  time  when  the  con- 
scription necessitated  a  scrupulous  examination  of  all  the  men 
enrolled.  Neither  climate  nor  latitude  can  explain  why  that 
average  varied  so  strangely  from  one  State  to  another,  in  the 
Middle  as  well  as  in  the  Northern  and  Western  States ;  or 
why  Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky,  for  instance,  furnished  the 
highest  average,  while,  after  the  State  of  New  York,  those  of 
the  far  "West,  such  as  Minnesota  and  Michigan,  sent  the  smallest 
men  to  the  army.  This  last  result  is  all  the  more  striking  because 
in  those  new  States,  where  the  human  race  seems  to  develop  with 
greater  freedom,  there  exists  a  truly  athletic  population  of  lum- 
bermen, living  from  generation  to  generation  in  the  virgin  forest, 
who,  when  formed  into  companies  and  at  times  into  regiments, 
presented  a  line  of  perfect  grenadiers  that  struck  the  officers  of  the 
British  Guards  with  admiration.  The  reason  is  that  alongside  of 
them,  in  the  same  contingent,  there  was  a  race  whose  inferiority 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  185 

was  but  poorly  compensated  by  the  former,  namely,  that  of  the 
German  emigrants  and  their  descendants  down  to  the  second  gen- 
eration. These  strange  variations  are  all  explained  by  the  move- 
ments of  emigration  on  the  soil  of  America,  and  the  average  stature 
of  each  contingent  was  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  number  of  emigrants 
who  had  settled  in  the  State  that  furnished  it.  The  current  of 
emigration  emptied  itself  at  New  York  and  certain  points  of  the 
northern  coast,  where  the  weakest  and  the  least  robust  took  up 
their  residence,  while  the  others,  passing  through  the  Middle 
States,  where  the  population  was  comparatively  numerous,  and 
shut  out  from  tlie  South  by  the  insurmountable  barrier  of  slavery, 
went  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  those  vast  Western  States  that  are 
watered  by  the  Upper  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  and  the  great 
lakes.  This  current  leaving  Vermont  at  the  north  and  Ken- 
tucky at  the  south,  and  traversing  Pennsylvania  too  rapidly  to 
leave  traces  of  its  passage  beliind,  these  States  possessed  therefore 
a  population  which,  for  the  most  part,  had  ah-eady  become  Amer- 
ican for  two  or  three  generations  back.  It  is  from  this  time  that 
the  beneficent  influence  of  the  New  World  upon  the  European 
races  is  felt ;  hence  the  physical  superiority,  seemingly  inexplic- 
able, of  the  contingents  furnished  by  these  three  States. 

The  elements  of  a  truly  national  army  were  therefore  assem- 
bling in  the  recruiting-offices  which  had  been  opened  from  one 
end  to  the  other  of  the  States  loyal  to  the  Union ;  we  must  now 
show  how  this  improvised  army  was  organized.  A  certain  number 
of  these  offices  would  co-operate  to  form  a  regiment,  the  effi3ctive 
strength  of  which,  as  in  the  regular  army,  was  usually  fixed  at  a 
minimum  of  850  men.  As  soon  as  this  figure  wis  reached  the 
regiment  entered  in  numerical  order  into  the  contingent  of  its 
State,  and  nothing  remained  to  be  done  in  order  to  establish  it 
but  to  arrange  its  list  of  officers  and  give  it  a  regimental  cadre. 
In  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  the  governor  is  the  commander- 
in-chief  of  all  the  local  armed  forces,  as  the  President  is  of  the 
Federal  troops,  and  he  has  the  disposal  of  all  the  grades  apper- 
taining to  those  local  forces.  But  custom  prevails  everywhere 
over  law,  and  so  inveterate  is  the  habit  of  electing  nearly  all  pub- 
lic functionaries,  that  in  several  States  the  governors  had  to  con- 
fine themselves  to  the  confirmation  of  the  choice  already  made  by 


186  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  soldiers  themselves.  During  the  Mexican  campaign  the  vol- 
unteers, being  far  away  from  their  respective  States,  had  already 
fallen  into  the  habit  of  replacing  such  of  their  officers  as  had 
fallen  in  battle  by  improvised  elections  held  around  the  camp- 
fires.  But  in  the  formation  of  the  new  regiments  of  which  we 
are  now  speaking,  there  were  certain  circumstances  which  inter- 
fered with  the  choice  of  the  soldiers  as  well  as  that  of  the  gov- 
ernor. Whether  it  was  owing  to  some  tacit  agreement,  or  a  posi- 
tive contract  between  the  governor,  the  new  soldiers,  and  the 
principal  recruiting-agents,  the  latter  were  generally  made  sure  in 
advance  of  grades  proportionate  to  the  importance  of  the  services 
rendered.  Thus  the  application  of  the  extreme  principles  of 
democracy  revived  the  system  of  proprietary  colonels,  and  the 
course  pursued  by  American  communities  for  the  prompt  organ- 
ization of  their  military  forces  resembled  in  many  respects  the 
formation  of  those  independent  companies  of  cavalry  {compagnies 
d'ordonnances)  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  constituted  the  nucleus 
of  standing  armies.  Indeed,  the  man  who  by  his  activity  and  in- 
fluence, and  the  expenditure  of  his  time  and  money,  succeeded  in 
raising  a  regiment,  and  had  perhaps  even  given  his  name  to  it, 
occupied  quite  a  different  position  from  that  of  an  officer  in  the 
regular  army,  who  can  only  rise  to  superior  rank  in  the  order  of 
seniority.  He  became  colonel  of  that  regiment  by  right,  and,  with- 
out positive  proof  of  un worthiness,  he  could  not  be  deprived  of  its 
command,  unless,  indeed,  the  difficulty  was  compromised  by  mak- 
ing him  a  general. 

Besides  these  volunteer  regiments  formed  for  the  occasion,  the 
greatest  portion  of  the  old  militia  organizations,  filled  up  by  new 
enlistments,  were  incorporated  in  like  manner  into  the  contingent 
of  each  State.  As  soon  as  organized  they  were  all  received  by 
the  Federal  agents  and  regularly  mustered  into  the  service  of  the 
Republic,  without,  however,  breaking  off  their  connection  with 
the  authorities  of  their  respective  States,  who  reserved  to  them- 
selves certain  important  rights  in  their  administration.  The  in- 
tervention of  these  two  different  powers,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  was  productive  of  more  advantage  than  inconvenience.  In- 
stances of  conflict  between  them  were  rare  and  insignificant ;  and 
this  system,  by  making  a  division  of  labor,  and  encouraging  a 


THE  FEDERAL    VOLUNTEERS.  187 

wholesome  rivalry  between  the  States,  enabled  the  army  to  acquire 
a  much  more  rapid  organization  than  it  would  have  done  if  the 
Federal  government  had  undertaken  this  formation  alone.  In 
those  critical  moments  when  a  nation's  life  depends,  not  upon  the 
perfection  of  the  means  employed  for  saving  lier,  but  upon  their 
prompt  application,  people  accustomed  to  leave  individual  action 
entirely  unfettered  well  know  how  to  turn  all  their  resources  to 
immediate  account,  whereas  a  centralized  administration,  accus- 
tomed to  do  everything  itself,  has  but  too  often  to  struggle  in 
hopeless  incapacity. 

The  Federal  government,  therefore,  was  required  by  law  to 
arm  and  equip  the  volunteers ;  but  as  it  stood  in  need  of  every- 
thing at  the  very  moment  when  all  had  to  be  created  at  once — as 
its  arsenals,  which  would  have  been  insufficient  for  the  emergency 
even  if  well  supplied,  had  been  emptied  by  the  instigatoi's  of 
rebellion,  most  of  the  States  themselves  undertook  to  furnish 
those  outfits  for  troops  which  they  raised.  The  small  State  of 
Rliode  Island,  whose  specialty  has  always  been  the  manufacture 
of  ordnance,  sent  to  Wasliington  several  batteries  provided  with 
horses,  and  all  the  necessary  accoutrements  for  taking  the  field  at 
once. 

The  day  when  a  new  regiment  was  delivered  over  to  the  Fed- 
eral authority  and  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Union,  that 
authority  took  it  under  pay,  and  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
providing  for  its  maintenance ;  each  soldier  received  an  entrance 
bounty,  and  the  promise  of  a  land-grant  on  the  day  of  his  dis- 
charge. This  promise  secured  to  him  a  fixed  and  certain  remu- 
neration at  the  close  of  his  term  of  service ;  for  if  his  bounty, 
paid  in  paper  money,  decreased  in  value  in  consequence  of  the 
depreciation  of  the  currency,  the  nominal  price  of  the  land,  hav- 
ing increased  in  like  proportion,  enabled  him  to  gain  on  one  hand 
what  he  lost  on  the  other.  The  depreciation  of  paper  money, 
however,  weighed  but  lightly  upon  the  volunteer,  even  during 
his  term  of  service,  for  from  1861  to  1865  his  pay  was  gradually 
raised  from  eleven  to  sixteen  dollars  per  month,  and  the  value  of 
bounties  given  by  the  Federal  government  was  increased  in  like 
manner.     Here  again  the  independent  initiative  already  referred 


188  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

to  is  seen  lending  a  helping  hand  to  the  central  authority ;  States, 
large  cities,  individual  corporations,  and  even  private  subscrip- 
tions, would  occasionally  swell  the  amount  of  those  bounties  by 
direct  contributions  of  more  or  less  importance,  and,  either  by 
donations  or  fixed  pensions,  secure  the  means  of  existence  to  the 
wife  and  children,  of  the  soldier,  who  was  thus  enabled  to  face 
death  without  fear  of  leaving  his  family  in  want.  Although 
mustered  into  the  service  of  the  Federal  government,  the  regi- 
ment was  still  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  State  whose  name  it 
bore,  in  all  matters  affecting  its  personnel ;  and  if  the  process  of 
recruiting  continued,  which  was  unfortunately  rarely  the  case,  it 
could  only  be  within  the  limits  of  that  State.  Each  governor 
had  under  his  control  a  sort  of  miniature  war  department  called 
the  adjutant-general's  office,  which  kept  up  relations  with  the 
regiments  scattered  throughout  the  Federal  armies,  and  de- 
spatched special  inspectors  to  watch  over  them  and  inquire  into 
their  wants ;  in  short,  it  continued  to  exercise  the  exclusive  right 
of  filling  up  vacancies  among  the  officers,  from  the  rank  of  second 
lieutenant  to  that  of  colonel.  The  central  government,  in  taking 
these  officers  into  its  service,  had,  it  is  true,  reserved  to  itself  the 
right  of  dismissing  such  as  were  deemed  incapable,  and  even  of 
withdrawing  their  commissions  and  suspending  their  pay  at  will, 
without  any  explanation ;  but  it  had  not  the  power  to  replace 
them  itself;  generals  commanding  in  the  field  had  to  apply  to  the 
adjutant-general  of  each  State  for  the  promotion  of  any  officers 
belonging  to  the  contingent  of  that  State. 

These  rights  once  reserved  to  the  local  authorities  of  the  States, 
the  volunteer  regiments  only  obeyed  the  Federal  authority.  They 
were  governed  by  the  military  code  of  the  United  States;  the 
government  at  Washington  alone  directed  their  movements,  and 
could  send  them  at  will  from  one  extremity  of  the  continent  to 
the  other ;  it  could  separate  them  from  those  who  had  originally 
formed  the  same  contingent  with  themselves,  and  distribute  them 
among  armies,  divisions,  and  even  brigades,  where  they  would 
meet  with  soldiers  belonging  to  another  section  of  the  Union. 
Finally,  it  had  the  direct  appointment  of  generals,  staff  officers, 
and  of  the  administrative  departments  in  the  armies  thus  consti- 
tuted. 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  189 

Besides  these  national  troops,  tlie  States  more  immediately 
threatened  by  their  proximity  to  the  seat  of  insurrection,  also 
organized  forces  for  the  defence  of  their  respective  territories ;  and 
in  order  to  attaiji  this  end  more  effectually,  they  sometinjes  formed 
nmtual  associations  Avithout  the  intervention  of  the  central  power. 
Wherever  danger  appeared  imminent,  the  spirit  of  local  initiative 
called  into  existence  new  and  sudden  resources. 

"When,  in  July,  1861,  for  instance.  Congress  voted  the  levy  of 
five  hundred  thousand  men,  of  which  we  shall  speak  in  proper 
time,  the  States  adjoining  the  frontier  of  slavery  had  anticipated 
the  call,  and  organized  forces  for  their  own  protection  against  the 
insurgents,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  were  arming  in  INIaryland,  Vir- 
ginia, and  Kentucky.  These  troops  had  their  own  generals  and 
staff  officers,  whose  rank  was  confined  to  the  State  that  had  con- 
ferred it  upon  them.  Numerous  regiments  were  thus  raised  in 
Pennsylvania.  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  united  under  the  aus- 
pices of  a  free  association,  organized  a  provisional  army,  and  had 
the  good  fortune  to  entrust  its  command  to  Captain  McClellan, 
whom  the  regard  of  his  former  companions  in  arms  had  unani- 
mously designated  for  that  arduous  position. 

Thanks  to  his  exertions,  this  preliminary  organization  had  the 
advantage  of  serving  as  a  school  for  those  troops  which  were  soon 
to  enter  the  Federal  service,  and  with  which,  shortly  afterwards, 
he  achieved  in  West  Virginia  the  first  success  of  the  war.  We 
shall  see  it  again  on  all  critical  occasions  during;  the  struocffle,  and 
especially  when  the  territory  of  the  free  States  was  invaded  by 
the  Confederate  armies.  These  militia  troops  thus  assembled  in 
haste  may  occasionally  from  a  distance  have  deceived  those  armies 
and  retarded  their  movements,  by  making  them  believe  in  the 
presence  of  a  powerful  force,  but  they  were  more  frequently  a 
source  of  embarrassment  than  of  support  to  the  generals  of  the 
Union,  and  the  insignificant  part  they  played  on  all  occasions  was 
the  only  one  suited  to  troops  so  utterly  destitute  of  all  the  quali- 
ties that  constitute  a  true  soldier. 

Before  we  follow  to  the  field  the  armies  whose  improvised 
organization  we  have  just  described,  it  is  proper  that  we  should 
point  out  the  peculiar  characteristics  which,  in  every  branch  of 
the  service,  distinguished  them  from  the  regular  troops  whose  bat- 


190  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ties  aie  closely  watched  by  Europe;  this  is  necessary  to  a  proper 
understanding  of  the  first  events  of  the  war  which  we  are  about 
to  relate.  In  order  to  form  a  correct  judgment  of  the  military 
commanders  who  directed  that  war,  it  is  necessary,  to  have  a  per- 
fect knowledge  of  the  good  qualities  and  defects  of  the  instru- 
ment they  had  to  handle. 

The  American  foot-soldier  displayed  from  the  very  first  a  great 
deal  of  personal  bravery.  The  conflicts  among  the  woods,  where 
he  was  to  fall  unnoticed  and  to  die  without  help,  afforded  the 
strongest  evidence  of  this  kind  of  courage,  for  they  deprived  him 
of  that  powerful  incentive  of  all  human  action,  the  hope  that  his 
name  would  not  die  with  him ;  it  was  nevertheless  in  these  en- 
counters, under  the  green  shroud  of  the  forest,  that  he  exhibited 
all  his  firmness. 

He  very  soon  acquired  a  remarkable  skill  in  firing,  and  quickly 
learned  to  hit  his  mark  as  a  skirmisher.  While  fighting  in  line, 
his  fire  had  not  the  regularity  of  the  drill-ground,  but  every  sol- 
dier, using  his  weapon  as  he  pleased,  would  hide  behind  a  tree ; 
and  picking  out  the  enemy  from  under  the  foliage  as  soon  as  he 
partially  exposed  himself,  he  knew  how  to  aim  with  fatal  pre- 
cision. One  fact  which  was  brought  to  light  by  the  report  of  the 
surgeon-general  on  the  war  demonstrates  this  peculiar  skill  of  the 
combatants  on  both  sides,  and  throws  a  curious  light  on  the  nature 
of  the  struggle  of  which  the  American  forests  were  the  theatre; 
it  shows  that  in  a  certain  number  of  Federal  hospitals  there  were 
under  treatment  more  than  thirty-six  thousand  wounds  in  the 
head  and  arms,  against  only  twenty-nine  thousand  in  the  legs ; 
and  this  is  easily  explained  by  the  position  of  the  soldier,  who, 
concealed  behind  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  only  exposed  his  head  and 
arras  when  he  discharged  his  piece. 

But  these  personal  qualities  are  not  sufficient  to  impart  to  a 
body  of  troops  that  collective  courage  which  inspires  every  man 
with  the  same  spirit,  and  enables  it  to  undertake  wdth  unanimity 
of  purpose  what  no  individual  among  those  composing  it  could 
have  attempted  by  himself.  This  distinctive  trait  of  well-trained 
armies,  which  constitutes  their  superiority,  is  the  result  of  long 
habits  of  discipline,  and  the  influence  of  old  and  experienced 
cadres. 


THE  FEDERAL    VOLUNTEERS.  191 

Indeed,  -svhatever  may  be  his  personal  courage,  the  soldier  who 
is  unaccustomed  to  being  under  fire,  placed  between  comrades 
who  are  as  great  novices  as  himself,  and  opposite  to  a  large 
body  of  the  enemy,  very  soon  persuades  himself  that  every  mus- 
ket in  the  enemy's  ranks  is  levelled  at  his  breast,  forgetting  that 
as  many  friendly  weapons  are  by  his  side  to  sustain  him.  He 
may  brave  his  peril,  but  will  lack  that  entire  confidence  in  the 
courage  of  his  neighbors  and  the  skill  of  his  chiefs  which  tends 
to  draw  closer  the  ranks  of  a  broken  force,  and  urges  the  soldier 
to  follow  the  lead  of  his  officers  in  a  desperate  effort.  The  con- 
trolling influence  of  a  severe  discipline  could  not  be  felt  among 
armies  entirely  new,  where  the  epaulet  did  not  carry  with  it  that 
moral  authority  which  is  acquired  by  long  service,  and  where  the 
soldiers  did  not  possess  the  assurance  of  men  who  have  seen  each 
other  under  trial.  Easily  impressed,  like  all  multitudes,  these 
men,  accustomed  to  complete  freedom  of  action,  went  into  battle 
in  a  spirit  of  obedience  which  is  rather  rational  than  passive, 
and  were  actuated  more  by  a  sense  of  duty  as  citizens  than  by 
the  habitude  of  the  disciplined  soldier,  who  forgets  his  own  voli- 
tion to  follow  that  of  his  chief. 

Consequently,  notwithstanding  their  bravery,  it  took  them  a 
long  time  to  learn  that,  upon  ground  where  the  fighting  had  to 
be  done  at  short  distances,  it  was  almost  always  less  dangerous 
to  rush  upon  the  enemy  than  to  be  decimated  by  his  fire  while 
standing  still.  For  want  of  that  mechanism  which,  in  well-regu- 
lated armies,  communicates  the  will  of  the  directing  power  to 
each  man,  as  rapidly  as  the  nerves  in  the  human  body,  they  were 
frequently  to  lose  the  opportunity  of  turning  a  first  advantage 
into  a  decisive  victory.  When  certain  death  awaited  those  occu- 
pying the  first  ranks,  when  it  was  so  easy  to  march  with  less 
rapidity  than  the  rest,  personal  courage  could  not  be  displayed  to 
the  same  extent  by  all ;  if  a  single  man  hesitated  or  was  allowed 
to  hesitate  with  impunity,  it  was  enough  to  render  that  hesitation 
contagious,  causing  the  bravest  soldier  to  lose  his  dash,  and  the 
most  resolute  chief  all  his  daring.  So  long  as  that  absolute 
despotism  alluded  to  by  Washington  did  not  impose  the  same 
obligations  upon  the  timid,  to  be  found  everyAvhere,  as  upon  the 


192  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

bravest,  the  American  volunteers  could  not  escape  those  inevitable 
consequences  of  the  human  character. 

Encounters  with  sword  and  bayonet,  which  seldom  occur  even 
between  well -trained  troops,  Avere  consequently  very  rare  in  Amer- 
ican battles.  Besides,  infantry  charges  could  only  take  place  in 
open  spaces  or  clearings,  which  form  a  kind  of  oasis  in  the  forest, 
too  dense  for  troops  to  march  in  serried  ranks  and  suddenly  to 
charge  the  enemy  with  the  bayonet.  In  those  close  fights  every- 
thing was  in  favor  of  the  party  acting  on  the  defensive.  The  as- 
sailant was  openly  exposed  to  the  fire  of  an  adversary  hidden 
along  the  skirt  of  the  wood ;  if  he  reached  the  spot,  the  density 
of  the  forest  rendered  all  pursuit  impossible.  A  barricade  of  fallen 
trees  enabled  the  party  assailed  to  rally  and  to  drive  the  aggressor 
back  into  the  clearing,  more  dangerous  to  cross  a  second  time  than 
the  first ;  finally,  if  the  latter  had  not  well  reconnoitred  his  flanks 
resting  on  the  sides  of  the  clearing,  he  was  liable  at  any  time 
to  be  exposed  to  an  oblique  fire  from  artillery  concealed  under  the 
foliage ;  we  shall  see  how  this  fear  of  masked  batteries  played 
upon  the  imagination  and  colored  the  stories  of  the  Federal  sol- 
diers in  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

These  forest  conflicts,  however,  possessed  a  great  advantage  for 
new  troops ;  the  view  being  intercepted,  panics  could  not  be  prop- 
agated, and  the  firing  of  the  soldiers  was  slower,  and  consequently 
much  better,  than  when  they  found  themselves  in  an  open  space, 
where  the  terrible  sights  which  surrounded  them  disturbed  their 
equanimity.  A  curious  circumstance  mentioned  in  the  official  ac- 
counts of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  which  was  fought  upon  ground 
comparatively  little  wooded,  shows  to  what  extent,  on  both  sides, 
the  excitement  of  the  conflict  caused  the  loss  of  self-possession 
among  soldiers  who  had  been  accustomed  for  some  time  to  hand- 
ling their  arras.  Among  twenty-four  thousand  loaded  muskets 
picked  up  at  random  on  the  field  of  battle,  one- fourth  only  werft 
properly  loaded ;  twelve  thousand  contained  each  a  double  charge, 
and  the  other  fourth  from  three  to  ten  charges;  in  some  there 
were  six  balls  to  a  single  charge  of  powder ;  others  contained  six 
cartridges,  one  on  the  top  of  the  other  without  having  been  opened  ; 
a  few  more,  twenty-three  complete  charges  regularly  inserted ;  and 
finally,  in  the  barrel  of  a  single  musket  there  were  found  con- 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  193 

fusedly  jumbled  together  twenty-two  balls,  sixty- two  buck-shot, 
witli  a  proportionate  quantity  of  powder.  These  souvenirs  of  the 
battle  admirably  depict  the  confusion ;  we  can  easily  imagine  the 
soldier  stopping  to  load  his  gun  while  his  companions  are  advan- 
cing, and  instead  of  stepping  to  the  front  and  firing  off  his  piece, 
rene^ving  the  operation  of  loading  until  the  weapon  becomes  a  use- 
less instrument  in  his  hands ;  but  we  should  not  severely  criticise 
the  American  soldier  on  this  account,  for  it  appears  that  an  ex- 
amination of  the  battle-fields  of  the  Crimea  gave  similar  results. 
In  consequence  of  the  independent  character  of  the  Federal  vol- 
unteers, more  than  one  general  saw,  in  the  battles  we  shall  have  to 
describe,  a  certain  victory  turned  into  defeat,  while  on  the  other 
hand,  the  most  disastrous  checks  could  almost  always  be  remedied ; 
a  sort  of  public  opinion  existing  among  them  even  in  the  midst 
of  conflicts,  we  shall  find  them  stoically  suffering  themselves  to  be 
killed  at  their  post  so  long  as  they  are  actuated  by  a  spirit  of 
rivalry ;  then,  suddenly  persuading  themselves  that  further  resist- 
ance is  useless,  at  the  very  moment  perhaps  Avhen  it  would  have 
decided  the  fate  of  a  battle,  they  fall  back  to  the  rear  in  search  of 
a  better  position.  This  retreat,  which  no  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
officers  can  prevent,  is  however  effected  Avithout  hastening  their 
pace,  in  spite  of  a  shower  of  balls,  and  with  a  degree  of  coolness 
Avhich  would  be  admirable  under  other  circumstances.  And,  what 
is  still  more  remarkable,  this  temporary  disorder  seldom  degenerated 
into  a  rout ;  a  few  minutes  would  often  suffice  to  stop  the  fugi- 
tives, restore  confidence  among  them,  re-form  their  ranks,  and  re- 
store all  the  authority  of  their  chiefs.  A  moment  after,  these 
soldiers,  so  suddenly  discouraged,  would  refuse  to  believe  them- 
selves beaten,  and  this  conviction  would  be  almost  equivalent  to 
a  victory. 

At  the  very  outset  of  the  campaign,  the  inexperience  of  the  Fed- 
eral volunteers  was  made  evident,  even  more  on  the  march  than 
on  the  battle-field.  In  fact,  a  body  of  troops  which  has  had  no 
practice  cannot,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  make  a  long 
march  without  straggling  on  the  road.  We  shall  see  at  the  end 
of  the  war  Sherman's  soldiers  traversing  the  half  of  a  continent 
and  conquering  success  through  the  vigor  of  their  legs,  while 
those  of  Grant  carried  a  load  of  forty-five  pounds  on  their  shoul- 
VoL.  I.— 13 


194  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

ders.  But  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  they  had  not  yet 
acquired  that  great  art  of  the  soldier  which  consists  in  bearing 
fatigue  and  taking  rest  in  a  systematic  manner.  They  ate  a  great 
deal,  did  not  know  how  to  economize  their  food,  adjusted  their 
knapsacks  clumsily,  and  could  only  carry  two  days'  rations.  The 
first  day's  march,  which  used  up  a  great  number,  although  very 
short,  already  filled  the  road  with  stragglers,  who,  while  directing 
their  steps  towards  the  place  assigned  for  the  halt,  did  not  con- 
sider themselves  bound  to  keep  up  with  their  comrades,  and  whom 
a  fresh  spring  of  water  or  a  shady  spot  would  keep  back ;  fortu- 
nately for  the  Federal  armies,  the  Confederate  guerrillas,  in  pick- 
ing up  such  stragglers,  did  more  towards  putting  a  stop  to  this 
fatal  habit  than  the  severest  orders  of  the  day. 

The  mounted  volunteers  naturally  took  the  regular  cavalry  for 
their  model,  and  imitated  their  mode  of  fighting,  which,  as  we 
have  already  observed,  recalled  that  of  the  old  dragoons  of  the 
seventeenth  century — a  curious  comparison  between  the  ancient 
military  customs  of  Europe  and  those  of  modern  America.  If 
those  troopers  borrowed  the  carbine  of  the  regulars,  it  was  not 
because  they  had  to  fight  an  enemy  as  swift  in  flight  as  the  Indian 
of  the  prairies,  but  that  every  inexperienced  soldier,  when  he  can 
choose  between  side-arms  and  firearms,  always  prefers  the  latter, 
which  does  not  compel  him  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  the  enemy. 
Besides,  in  order  to  handle  a  sabre  or  a  lance,  one  should  be  fully 
able  to  manage  a  horse,  and  the  horsemanship  of  the  Federal 
volunteers  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  was  deplorable.  They 
did  not  fire  from  their  saddles  like  the  troopers  of  the  times  of 
Louis  XIV.,  but  got  into  the  habit  of  fighting  on  foot,  leaving 
their  horses  in  charge  of  one-fourth  of  their  number.  The 
wooded  and  rugged  character  of  the  country  was  suited  to  this 
mode  of  warfare,  but  would  not  have  admitted  of  those  great  and 
rapid  evolutions  of  a  cavalry  relying  solely  on  the  swiftness  of 
their  horses,  if  such  cavalry  had  existed  in  America. 

The  cavalry,  however,  at  the  outset  of  the  war,  confined  itself 
to  the  complicated  task  of  scouting  for  the  armies,  and  acting  as 
ekirmishers.  This  service,  although  difficult  for  young  troops, 
was  not  altogether  new  to  American  horsemen,  accustomed  to  an 
adventurous  life  which  suited  their  spirit  of  personal  enterprise. 


THE  FEDERAL   VOLUNTEERS.  195 

If  they  did  not  always  possess  the  just  instinct  of  war,  nor  that 
abiding  vigilance  indispensable  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy,  they 
made  up  these  deficiencies  by  their  intelligence  and  daring ;  a  great 
number  of  little  engagements,  which  cannot  find  a  place  in  our  nar- 
rative, afforded  them  opportunities  to  show  that  the  inventive  mind 
of  the  Americans  was  never  at  fault  when  it  became  necessary  to 
devise  a  stratagem  or  to  make  combinations  for  some  bold  stroke. 

At  a  later  period  the  importance  of  the  cavalry  was  developed 
by  the  new  part  assigned  to  it  in  those  raids  or  large  independent 
expeditions,  of  which  we  shall  speak  hereafter. 

The  artillery  could  not  find  amid  the  American  forests  favor- 
able ground  and  those  large  open  spaces  Mdiere  it  can  operate  with 
most  effect.  It  was,  however,  from  the  first  day  in  large  force 
and  constantly  employed,  because  this  arm  of  the  service  had, 
from  the  very  first,  been  highly  popular  among  the  volunteers, 
while  the  infantry,  before  it  had  been  well  trained,  did  not  like 
to  move  without  feeling  itself  supported  by  some  guns,  even  for 
a  simple  reconnaissance.  As  we  have  seen  at  Big  Bethel,  field- 
pieces  were  placed  as  vedettes  near  the  most  advanced  sentinels  of 
those  new  armies.  This  practice,  common  to  both  parties,  fre- 
quently led  to  a  noisy  kind  of  artillery  duel  rarely  bloody.  If 
the  position  of  one  of  those  advanced  batteries  displeased  the 
enemy,  or  if  one  of  the  two  adversaries  desired  to  try  some  newly 
invented  projectile,  the  first  fire  was  sure  to  bring  on  a  lively 
cannonade,  which  the  distance  and  the  small  number  of  combat- 
ants generally  rendered  harmless.  But  when  the  rattling  peals 
of  musketry  announced  a  serious  engagement,  the  artillery  of 
the  volunteers,  worthy  rival  of  that  of  the  regulars,  would  always 
rush  across  woods  and  swamps  to  seek  a  position  where  the  dan- 
ger was  greatest,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  abandoned  by  the  raw 
troops  who  were  its  only  support. 

We  have  dwelt  upon  the  defects  of  the  American  volunteers 
because  they  were  the  cause  of  their  first  reverses,  and  because,  in 
exposing  them,  we  are  only  exalting  the  merit  of  those  men  who 
had  so  much  to  learn,  in  order  to  become  capable  of  accomplish- 
ing the  great  task  they  had  undertaken,  and  who  succeeded  by 
dint  of  perseverance  and  devotion.  One  trait  in  their  character 
redeemed  all  these  defects,  and  already  displayed,  under  the  garb 


196  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  these  inexperienced  men,  those  valiant  champions  who,  at  the 
end  of  the  war,  carried  the  enemy's  strong  works  by  assault :  they 
went  under  fire  more  resolutely  the  second  time  than  th^  first. 
Bad  soldiers,  if  unconscious  of  the  impression  which  the  reality 
of  war  will  produce  upon  them,  are  apt  to  rush  into  the  fight  with 
as  much  daring  and  resolution  as  veteran  troops,  and  once  engaged 
they  will  sometimes  continue  to  behave  well ;  but  experience 
makes  them  timid,  and  their  courage  fails  them  afterwards,  when 
called  upon  to  face  a  danger  they  have  learned  to  appreciate.  On 
the  contrary,  participation  in  those  dangers,  the  loss  of  their  com- 
rades, the  sufferings  and  hardships  of  ithe  war,  were  to  strengthen 
the  courage  and  increase  the  self-possession  of  the  volunteers  whom 
a  patriotic  duty  had  taken  from  the  occupations  of  civil  life.  Iron, 
when  pure  and  of  good  quality,  acquires  shape  and  strength  under 
the  repeated  blows  of  the  blacksmith's  hammer,  while  metal  adul- 
terated with  bad  alloys  splits  and  soon  flies  in  pieces. 


BOOK  III.— THE  FIRST  CONFLICT. 


CHAPTER    I. 

RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS. 

THE  modes  of  warfare  vary  in  every  country  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  ground.  What  is  possible  on  the  wide  plains 
of  Germany  or  in  the  rich  provinces  of  Italy  becomes  impracti- 
cable among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  or  on  the  parched  and 
rugged  joil  of  Spain.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  in  this  recital, 
which  takes  us  upon  another  continent,  before  we  judge  men,  and 
compare  what  they  have  done  with  what  might  be  accomplished 
in  any  stated  part  of  Europe,  we  must  consider  the  conditions  im- 
posed upon  them  by  the  physical  characteristics  of  the  country  in 
which  they  had  to  operate. 

Let  us  therefore  begin  by  casting  a  glance  over  the  map  of  that 
vast  country  where,  for  the  last  half  century,  modern  civilization, 
taking  a  marvellous  flight,  has  developed  itself  amid  the  grandeurs, 
almost  intact,  of  virgin  Nature.  What  strikes  the  observer  at 
first  is  the  simplicity  of  the  geographical  configuration  of  the 
United  States.  We  set  aside  the  Pacific  basin,  which,  closely 
connected  with  the  other  sections  of  the  confederation  by  political 
and  social  affinities,  is  separated  from  them  by  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  plains  which  guard  the  approaches  of  that  wild  and 
desolate  chain  to  the  eastward.  Those  spacious  deserts,  which  the 
emigrant  crosses  without  settling,  envelop  the  new  States,  where 
he  goes  to  seek  his  fortune,  with  a  belt  that  is  impassable  for  large 
arm-es.  No  great  natural  divisions  are  to  be  met  between  the 
foot  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Atlantic  borders.  There  is 
but  one  solitary  range  of  mountains  to  be  seen — that  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  of  great  length,  but  deficient  in  altitude,  extending  from 
north-east  to  south-west,  and  consequently  not  presenting  diver- 
sities of  climate ;  intersected  by  numerous  rivers  of  considerable 
size,  divided  throughout  its  whole  extent  by  large  and  fertile  val- 

197 


198  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

leys,  but  without  the  snowy  crown  of  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees, 
and  devoid,  therefore,  of  all  that  can  render  a  chain  of  mountains 
a  real  barrier  and  a  political  boundary.  The  American  rivers, 
slow  and  deep,  easily  navigable,  instead  of  being  an  obstacle,  are 
so  many  open  highways  for  war  as  well  as  for  commerce.  The 
geun-al  aspect  of  America,  therefore,  is  grand  and  imposing,  but 
singularly  monotonous  and  uniform,  and  very  different  from  that 
of  Europe,  where  Nature  and  man  have  vied  with  each  other  in 
producing  striking  varieties  of  form.  It  is  easy  to  take  in  at  one 
glance  the  collective  features  of  that  country ;  but  the  details  of 
its  different  parts  are  so  much  alike  that  the  observer  can  with 
difficulty  identify  any  of  them.  Under  the  artificial  divisions  of 
States  and  counties  traced  by  rule  and  line  across  hundreds  of  leagues, 
where  no  historical  associations  exist,  and  which  make  a  perfect 
checker-board  of  the  map ;  between  towns  and  villages  whose 
names,  by  turns  classical  and  vulgar,  are  so  frequently  repeated 
that  they  become  a  useless  embarrassment  to  the  memory,  nothing 
can  be  distinguished  but  a  network  of  water-courses  more  en- 
tangled than  the  blood-vessels  of  the  human  body.  It  is  a  country 
possessing  an  even  surface,  with  equal  undulations  throughout  its 
whole  extent,  and  covered  with  forests  that  collect  the  dampness 
and  stock  it  in  a  multitude  of  valleys.  Except  among  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  no  clearly  defined  division  of  waters  occurs,  no  large 
table-lands  nor  open  spaces,  no  deep  depressions,  so  that  on  Hear- 
ing the  Atlantic  the  level  of  the  ground  gradually  -lowers,  until 
land  and  sea  become  interlaced ;  the  smallest  valleys  are  trans- 
formed into  estuaries  and  the  faintest  undulations  into  long  pe- 
ninsulas. It  is  not  a  part  of  our  subject  to  point  out  the  effect  of 
this  configuration  upon  the  political  condition  of  America.  Being 
without  the  long  and  bloody  history  of  Europe,  and  not  divided 
between  different  races  or  hostile  civilizations,  she  has  not  wit- 
nessed the  formation  of  artificial  frontiers  upon  her  soil,  to  take 
the  place  of  those  natural  divisions  that  are  at  variance  with 
them.  The  same  single  people  have  spread  over  a  uniform  ter- 
ritory, and  have  everywhere  implanted  the  same  institutions. 
And  by  a  truly  providential  coincidence,  the  day  when  the  im- 
mensity of  her  domain  might  have  weakened  the  bonds  of  her 
unity,  railways  were  introduced  which   averted  the  impending 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  199 

danger.  Thanks  to  them,  New  Orleans  is  to-day  noarer  New 
York  than  JNIarseilles  was  to  Havre  forty  years  ago,  wlien  France 
could  count  as  many  inhabitants  as  constitute  the  population  of  the 
United  States  at  the  present  time.  It  is  wrong,  therefore,  to  suppose 
that  the  extent  of  their  territory  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their 
commercial  development  and  a  cause  for  political  dissolution. 

But  it  is  otherwise  in  a  military  point  of  view.  The  distances, 
the  nature  of  the  country,  and  the  condition  of  its  settlements,  in- 
terpose extraordinary  difficulties  to  the  great  movements  of  armies 
and  their  manoeuvres  on  the  battle-field.  The  population  is  dis- 
tributed very  differently  from  what  it  is  in  Europe.  While  cen- 
turies of  war,  of  violence,  and  oppression  have  concentrated  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Old  World  in  cities  and  villages,  peace,  safety, 
and  freedom  have  induced  the  settlers  of  America  to  spread  them- 
selves over  the  surface  of  the  country ;  and  each  of  them  settling 
down  upon'  the  patch  of  land  which  he  has  undertaken  to  clear 
with  his  individual  resources,  the  rural  families,  instead  of  draw- 
ing near  their  neighbors  and  forming  small  straggling  towns, 
have  preferred  an  isolated  country  life.  Since  then,  immense 
cities  have  undoubtedly  sprung  up  in  the  free  States — not  as  a 
consequence  of  public  danger,  but,  on  the  contrary,  as  the  nat- 
ural results  of  accumulated  wealth  and  powerful  commerce; 
but  in  the  matter  of  social  organization,  these  cities  play  a 
totally  different  part  from  that  of  our  great  European  centres. 
In  America  it  is  not  the  man  from  the  country  who  goes  to 
seek  his  fortune  in  the  city ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  city 
people  whom  the  hope  of  higher  wages  or  of  rapid  profits 
draws  into  the  country.  Far  from  absorbing  the  vital  forces 
of  the  nation,  the  city  is  only  a  vast  reservoir  from  which  they 
are  poured  over  the  whole  country.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten 
that  these  great  cities  only  exist  in  the  Northern  States.  In  the 
slave  States,  which  have  been  the  exclusive  theatre  of  the  war,  pru- 
dence on  one  side,  the  demands  for  field-labor  on  the  other,  caused 
the  servile  population  to  be  distributed  among  the  vast  planta- 
tions of  their  respective  masters.  So  that  in  those  States  there  are 
neither  large  cities  nor  villages  ;  small  towms  are  scarce,  the  chief 
county  place  being  designated  by  a  solitary  building,  generally 
situated  at  the  intersection  of  two  roads,  and  the  Federal  armies 


200  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  frequently  to  march  for  many  long  days  without  meeting  with 
more  than  four  houses  together  in  the  same  clearing.  Essentially 
expansive  in  its  tendencies,  the  population  of  the  United  States, 
like  a  liquid  which  nothing  can  keep  within  bounds,  has  always 
spread  itself  over  new  tracts  of  land  before  it  has  completely  settled 
those  already  occupied.  Thus,  in  the  slave  States  this  slight  sprink- 
ling of  white  population  represented  in  1860  less  than  six  inhab- 
itants to  every  square  kilometre,  and  the  proportion  of  cultivated 
lands  to  the  entire  surface  of  the  territory  was  only  16.07  per 
cent,  in  the  South-eastern  States  and  10.17  per  cent,  in  those  of 
the  South-west.  During  the  eighty  years  which  followed  the  war 
of  Independence,  this  proportion  was  scarcely  increased,  while  dur- 
ing the  same  period  of  time,  the  total  population  of  the  Republic 
increased  tenfold.  Forest  and  swamp  are  yet  in  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  the  eight  or  nine-tenths  still  undisturbed  by  man — the 
forest,  ordinarily  an  assemblage  of  lofty  trees  mixed  with  coppice ; 
the  swamp,  a  woody  marsh  where  the  combined  action  of  sun  and 
water  develops  a  powerful  vegetation,  the  thickness  of  which  in- 
terposes serious  obstacles  to  the  movements  of  armies. 

To  the  natural  difficulties  which  a  too  scanty  population  has 
not  yet  been  able  to  overcome,  there  was  added  in  the  South  the 
enervating  influence  of  slavery.  This  fatal  institution  paralyzes 
that  spirit  of  enterprise  which,  in  the  North,  produces  a  striking 
contrast  between  the  triumphs  of  industry  and  the  splendors  of  a 
yet  rebellious  Nature  only  half  conquered  by  civilization.  Turn- 
pikes are  few  and  poorly  kept.  The  roads,  laid  out  at  random 
from  clearing  to  clearing,  over  a  rich  soil  easily  softened,  be- 
come impassable  at  the  first  rainfall.  Magnificent  rivers  roll 
their  unexplored  waters  through  the  great  shadows  of  the  virgin 
forest,  as  in  the  days  Avhen  the  canoe  of  the  Indian  was  gently 
wafted  upon  their  currents.  There  were  no  maps,  or  at  least 
bad  maps,  which  is  even  worse  yet  for  the  purposes  of  war.  It 
appears  that  the  drawings  made  by  Washington  during  the  leisure 
hours  of  his  youth  still  constitute  the  best  topographical  charts 
of  Virginia,  and  the  only  States  which  possess  correct  drawings 
of  land-surveys  are  those  most  recently  admitted  into  the  Union, 
which,  as  Territories,  were  for  some  time  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the   Federal   government  and   surveyed  by  Federal  officers. 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  201 

Those  portions  of  America  which  were  the  earliest  colonized  are 
those  whose  geography  is  the  most  imperfect. 

Another  capital  difficulty  in  the  way  of  military  operations 
arose  from  the  fact  that  the  products  of  the  Southern  States, 
especially  during  the  early  stages  of  the  war,  were  not  adapted 
for  the  subsistence  of  armies.  The  cotton-plant  and  the  sugar- 
cane reigned  without  rivals  in  the  extreme  South,  and,  more  to 
the  northward,  tobacco.  Virginia  alone  cultivated  wheat  to  a 
great  extent  in  the  elevated  valleys  of  the  Alleghanies,  but  like 
the  neighboring  State  of  Kentucky,  her  principal  jjroduct  was  the 
slave  himself.  She  took  him  out  of  her  infamous  pens  to  supply 
the  sugar  and  cotton  plantations,  and  to  repair  the  ravages  of 
forced  labor  and  an  insatiable  climate.  This  interior  traffic, 
which  an  odious  application  of  the  politico-economical  principle 
of  the  relations  between  supply  and  demand  had  developed  since 
the  sujiprcssion  of  the  African  slave-trade,  had  by  a  just  retalia- 
tion struck  a  death-blow  to  the  prosperity  of  those  States.  The 
production  and  raising  of  slaves,  to  which  everything  was  sacri- 
ficed, had  ruined  agriculture  by  multiplying  the  number  of  useless 
mouths,  without  increasing  the  number  of  strong  arras,  which 
were  constantly  being  exported  into  other  markets.  Conse- 
quently, at  the  opening  of  the  war,  the  Southern  States  depended 
entirely  for  their  flour  and  salt  meats  upon  enormous  importations 
from  the  "Western  States. 

The  vast  blockade  in  which  the  North  held  them  shackled 
during  the  war  compelled  them  at  last  to  make  their  own  soil 
yield  *  them  the  necessary  means  for  sustaining  life.  Cotton, 
sugar,  and  tobacco,  having  lost  their  value,  gave  place  to  cereals, 
the  cultivation  of  which,  contrary  to  many  predictions,  spread 
and  prospered  as  far  as  the  warm  plains  of  Georgia.  It  was  alone 
owing  to  this  change  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  that  the 
Confederate  armies  were  able  to  subsist,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it 
deprived  the  South  of  one  of  her  strongest  defences,  by  rendering 
invasion  easier. 

Sherman  understood  this,  and  attempted,  in  1865,  that  de- 
cisive march  which,  all  other  things  being  equal,  he  could  not 
have  undertaken  two  or  three  years  before,  across  those  States 
then  exclusively  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  cotton.     And  yet 


202  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

his  example  aiFords  no  proof  that  an  army  can  subsist  in  America 
upon  the  resources  of  the  country  it  occupies.  It  was  only  by 
avoiding  all  stoppages,  by  always  marching  on,  and  constantly 
occupying  a  new  section  of  country,  that  Sherman  was  able  to 
get  along  for  some  time  without  the  supplies  forwarded  from 
the  i^orthern  States.  When  the  large  American  armies,  propor- 
tioned not  to  the  density  of  the  population,  but  to  its  entire  num- 
ber, found  themselves,  with  all  the  requirements  of  a  refined  civ- 
ilization, in  the  midst  of  a  country  yet  so  little  cultivated,  they 
encountered  difficulties  unknown  in  our  European  wars,  and 
which  Washington,  Rochambeau,  and  Cornwallis  had  formerly 
escaped,  owing  to  the  small  number  of  their  soldiers.  The  popu- 
lation is  too  limited  to  supply,  out  of  its  husbanded  resources,  the 
wants  of  such  masses  of  men  gathered  together  within  a  narrow 
space  by  the  chances  of  war. 

We  have  shown  that  this  population  does  not  form  any  agglom- 
erated centres,  where  the  products  of  the  country  are  naturally 
brought  together,  and  where  armies  can  easily  obtain  suppljies. 
The  raihvays,  which  facilitate  the  circulation  of  such  products  and 
favor  their  exchange,  have  rendered  d6p6ts  where  capital  remains 
inactive — a  thing  always  repugnant  to  an  American — unnecessary, 
by  carrying  off  at  once  all  the  fruits  of  the  soil  except  what  is 
strictly  necessary  for  local  consumption.  Armies,  therefore,  except 
under  peculiar  and  fleeting  circumstances,  are  obliged  to  draw  the 
largest  portion  of  their  supplies  from  sections  of  country  remote 
from  the  seat  of  war.  To  concentrate  provisions  in  the  quiet  and 
productive  districts,  to  have  these  provisions  safely  forwarded  to 
the  depots  stationed  en  echelon  in  the  rear  of  the  army,  and  by 
means  of  these  depots  to  issue  daily  supplies  to  all  the  corps  on 
their  march, — such  is  the  first  requirement  for  conducting  a  cam- 
paign in  America,  and  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  which 
a  general-in-chief  has  to  solve.  The  almost  entire  absence  of  turn- 
pikes,  the  necessity  of  subjecting  the  thousands  of  tons  of  j)ro- 
visions  consumed  daily  by  a  large  army  to  such  long  and  com- 
plicated transits,  limits  the  transportation  by  wagons  considerably, 
and  venders  the  powerful  assistance  of  steam  indispensable  both 
by  water  and  by  rail. 

These  fruitful  arteries,  which  have  permitted  the  concentration, 


EIVEES  AND  RAILWAYS.  203 

at  different  points,  of  the  resources  of  an  immense  ttrritorj,  and 
whose  life-bearing  current  has  alone  been  able  to  feed  those  arti- 
ficial and  unproductive  masses  of  humanity  called  armies,  are 
S3  important  that  the  Southern  Confederacy  died  of  inanition  the 
very  day  it  was  deprived  of  their  help.  Hence  the  decisive  in- 
fluence of  the  combined  system  of  these  river  and  iron  highways 
upon  the  conduct  of  the  war ;  it  traced  in  advance,  so  to  speak, 
the  route  of  armies,  and  indicated  the  points  the  possession  of 
which  they  contended  for.  It  is  important,  therefore,  to  a  proper 
understanding  of  the  manner  in  which  the  war  ^yas  conducted, 
that  we  should  offer  a  few  remarks  regarding  this  system,  not- 
withstanding the  little  attraction  geographical  descriptions  possess 
in  general. 

All  travellers  have  vaunted  the  majesty  of  American  rivers,  but 
have  failed  to  present  an  idea  of  their  number.  These  rivers  pen- 
etrate the  continent  in  every  direction,  and  are  navigable  at  all 
times  for  a  certain  distance ;  but  when  the  rainy  season  comes, 
the  shallows  disappear,  the  smallest  tributaries  are  rapidly 
swollen,  extending  the  limits  of  navigation  to  the  very  heart 
of  the  Union,  and  opening  thereby  an  easy  way  of  access  to 
the  steamboats  that  have  come  from  the  remotest  parts  of 
the  continent.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  American  journals 
always  published  a  register  of  the  water-marks  of  their  great 
rivers  as  among  the  most  important  news-items  of  the  war.  The 
American  steamboat,  a  huge  flat-bottomed  structure  resembling  a 
castle  many  stories  high,  with  its  strong  engine  and  powerful 
wheels,  can  transport,  in  a  single  trip,  enormous  cargoes  of  pro- 
visions, ammunition,  and  even  soldiers.  An  army  appui/ee  upon 
one  of  these  rivers  can  easily  receive  all  the  supplies  it  needs. 
So  long  as  it  controls  the  waters  its  resources  are  unlimited. 
Piers  can  easily  be  improvised  from  the  forests  which  border  the 
banks;  upon  this  level  highway  no  impediments  are  ever  met 
with,  no  intermediate  loadings  or  unloadings ;  the  cargoes  can 
be  transported  directly  from  the  large  cities  of  Cincinnati  or  St. 
liOuis  to  the  vicinity  of  the  Federal  camps  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tennessee  or  the  Mississippi,  a  distance  of  three  or  four  hundred 
leagues  from  the  point  of  departure. 

^iCt  us,  in  a  few  words,  give  an  outline  of  the  general  configu 


204  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ration  and  the  ensemble  of  those  rivers  in  the  States  that  were 
the  theatre  of  the  war. 

The  whole  system  of  water-courses  in  that  vast  region  of 
country  may  be  divided  into  two  parts,  entirely  distinct  and  sep- 
arated by  a  long  line,  which,  broken  at  a  single  point,  extends 
from  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  to  those  of  the  Potomac. 
Formed  at  first  by  an  insignificant  chain  of  hills,  this  line  runs 
from  west  to  east,  from  the  great  river  to  a  point  south  of  Chatta- 
nooga ;  leaving  this  point,  it  follows  the  chain  of  the  AUeghanies, 
from  south-west  to  north-east  as  far  as  the  gap  made  by  the  Poto- 
mac, and  to  the  boundary  of  the  free  States.  To  the  south  and 
south-east  of  this  great  division,  the  waters  flow  directly  into  the 
sea,  emptying  either  into  the  Atlantic  or  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
On  the  opposite  slope,  these  waters  rush  from  every  point  of  the 
horizon  to  meet  again  in  the  Mississippi,  that  immense  and  only 
drainage  of  half  a  continent.  This  dividing  line,  uninterrupted 
by  any  w^ater  communication,  proved  a  very  serious  obstacle 
throughout  the  entire  war. 

The  Atlantic  basin  is  an  elongated  triangle  extending  between 
the  AUeghanies  and  the  sea,  its  highest  elevation  being  on  the 
estuary  of  the  Potomac  at  Washington,  and  the  base  lying  from 
Chattanooga  to  the  peninsula  of  Florida,  comprising  the  States 
that  were  the  earliest  colonized.  The  James,  the  Poanoke,  the 
Savannah,  the  Altamaha,  and  other  streams  which  descend  from 
the  mountains  to  lose  themselves  in  deep  bays  or  vast  swamps, 
intersect  this  triangle  perpendicularly  to  the  coast. 

A  slight  undulation  of  surface,  connecting  the  AUeghanies  with 
Florida,  separates  the  Atlantic  slope  from  that  portion  of  the 
basin  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  which  lies  east  of  the  Mississippi ; 
it  is  a  fertile  country,  very  well  watered,  but  more  recently  set- 
tled and  less  populated.  Consequently,  its  importance  in  con- 
nection with  the  war  was  only  secondary.  Although  Sherman 
crossed,  near  their  sources  in  Georgia,  the  three  large  rivers  which 
flow  through  the  State  from  north  to  south,  the  Chattahoochee, 
the  Alabama,  and  the  Tombigbee,  the  fantastic  names  of  the  first 
and  the  last  are  still  as  little  known  as  when  they  were  only 
uttered  by  Indian  warriors.  The  Alabama  owes  its  celebrity, 
not  to  the  insignificant  battles  fought  upon  its  banks,  but  to  the 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  205 

chance  which  caused  the  same  name  to  be  bestowed  upon  the 
famous  Confederate  pirate  whose  fragments  lie  at  tiie  bottom  of 
the  sea  not  far  from  Cherbourg. 

There  are  two  not  far  apart  points  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
continent,  both  situated  on  the  borders  of  the  Mississippi,  which 
in  their  combination  constitute  one  of  those  exceptional  locations 
which,  like  the  Bosphorus,  seem  to  have  been  intended  by  a 
special  favor  of  Nature  for  an  extraordinary  destiny.  We  allude 
to  that  magnificent  rendezvous  of  the  waters,  descending  from  all 
the  cardinal  points,  and  forming  between  St.  Louis  and  Cairo  an 
immense  river  which  afterwards  runs  into  the  sea  without  gather- 
ing any  tributary  of  importance  from  the  east,  and  only  two 
from  the  west.  St.  Louis,  whose  French  name  recalls  the  period 
of  our  brief  sway  over  those  vast  regions,  and  whose  present 
prosperity  reflects  honor  upon  those  sturdy  colonists  who  had  the 
sagacity  to  select  that  site  on  the  very  day  following  our  disasters 
in  Canada, — St.  Louis  is  situated  at  the  confluence  of  the  Missouri, 
the  INIississippi,  and  the  Illinois,  flowing  from  the  west,  the  north- 
west, and  the  north. 

At  Cairo,  her  unfortunate  rival,  infected  with  fever,  these  riv- 
ers connect  with  the  Ohio,  the  "  Beautiful  River, ^'  swelled  by  the 
Tennessee  and  other  tributaries  which  pour  into  it  from  the  south. 

This  wonderful  concourse  of  waters  greatly  facilitates  commu- 
nications of  all  kinds,  commercial  intercourse  as  well  as  military 
operations. 

The  regions  watered  by  these  rivers  were  differently  affected 
by  the  war;  the  borders  of  some  were  devastated,  their  hills 
made  to  bristle  with  cannon,  their  waters  ploughed  by  armed 
vessels,  and  many  lives  sacrificed ;  while  others  had  to  supply  the 
combatants  with  provisions  and  gather  together  the  produce  of 
rich  and  undisturbed  districts  for  the  use  of  the  army. 

The  events  we  have  narrated,  which  marked  the  line  of  separa- 
tion between  the  belligerents,  divided  this  vast  basin  into  three 
parts. 

One,  situated  north  of  the  Ohio,  that  boundary  between  free- 
dom and  slavery  so  admirably  described  by  De  Tocqueville,  com- 
prised the  rich  Middle  States,  the  granaries  of  America,  and  soon 
to  be  those  of  the  whole  world.     It  was  to  know  nothino;  of  the 


206  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

war  except  tlirough  the  accounts  given  by  its  sons,  and  by  the 
absence  of  those  who  were  doomed  never  again  to  revisit  the 
domestic  hearth. 

The  second  extended  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi, 
the  home  of  the  Indian  and  the  buffalo,  and  the  new  country  of 
the  pioneer,  the  eternal  enemy  of  both — a  country  the  immensity 
of  which  seems  to  stimulate  individual  energy,  and  where  the 
laws  are  as  vague  as  its  boundaries.  There,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  violent  passions,  the  legal  struggle  which  was  going  on 
elsewhere  between  slavery  and  free  labor  had  already  for  some 
time  assumed  a  fierce  and  sanguinary  character,  and  the  outposts 
of  two  hostile  institutions,  constantly  facing  each  other,  had  antici- 
pated tlie  declaration  of  war  by  many  years.  So,  no  doubt,  we 
shall  see  the  still  burning  embers  of  that  great  conflagration  lurk- 
ing in  their  ashes  for  a  long  time  to  come.  But,  at  the  critical 
moment,  the  irregular  warfare  of  which  those  too  spacious  regions 
were  the  theatre  exercised  no  influence  upon  the  great  plan  of 
military  operations. 

Finally,  the  third  part,  bounded  on  the  west  by  the  Mississippi, 
and  on  the  north  by  the  Ohio,  comprising  West  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  and  portions  of  the  neighboring  States,  was  the 
territory  the  possession  of  which  the  Federals,  taking  the  ofl'en- 
sive,  disputed  with  their  adversaries.  This  almost  virgin  soil 
was  to  be  trodden  by  the  largest  armies  that  were  ever  assem- 
bled on  either  side,  and  witnessed  such  torrents  of  human  blood 
as  it  is  the  sad  privilege  of  an  advanced  civilization  to  shed. 

In  those  vast  regions,  some  of  the  most  decisive  blows  of  the 
war  have  brought  into  unexpected  notice  the  name  of  some  hum- 
ble settler  of  the  wilderness  who  had  helped  to  clear  it  with  his 
own  hands;  while,  by  some  singular  coincidence,  the  mysterious 
meaning  of  some  curious  appellation,  the  only  legacy  left  by  an 
unhappy  race,  as  a  fatal  prophecy  to  the  country  it  had  been  dis- 
possessed of,  has  been  unravelled.  When  the  Indian  called  one 
of  the  thousand  rivulets  which  meander  across  the  upper  ridges 
of  Georgia,  Chickamauga,  or  "The  River  of  Deatli,"  could  he 
have  foreseen,  by  a  secret  instinct,  the  fratricidal  war  which  was 
to  strike  down  the  white  men  in  expiation  of  their  past  crimes, 
and  the  autumnal  evenino;  which  was  to  witness  the  destruction 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  207 

of  thirty  thousand  of  his  future  enemies  w^on  the  borders  of  that 
insignificant  stream? 

The  waters  of  this  third  part,  th(^  only  one  that  has  any  interest 
for  us,  are  all  tributaries  of  the  Ohio.  Among  all  the  import- 
ant streams  of  this  basin,  however,  two  only,  the  Great  Kanawha 
and  the  Kentucky,  descend  directly  from  the  Alleghanies  towards 
this  river,  and  yet,  their  currents  being  too  raj^id  to  be  long 
navigable,  they  possess  no  military  importance.  All  the  others 
begin  by  diverging  from  the  course  of  the  "Beautiful  River," 
and  meeting  again  in  two  large  streams,  the  Cumberland  and  the 
Tennessee,  Mhich  envelop  the  whole  basin  in  two  concentric 
curves  at  the  south,  only  empty  into  the  Ohio  just  before  it  loses 
itself  in  the  Father  of  Waters.  Thence  extends  a  vast  space  with- 
out any  rivers,  separating  the  course  of  the  Ohio  and  its  fertile 
borders  from  the  neighboring  regions  of  the  Alleghanies,  and 
obliging  those  who  desire  to  reach  that  country  by  water  to  fol- 
low the  immense  circuit  of  the  Tennessee,  the  length  of  which 
is  greater  and  navigable  for  a  longer  distance  than  the  Cum- 
berland. 

There  remains  the  great  line,  sinuous  in  its  details,  but  straight 
in  its  general  direction,  which  the  Mississippi  traces  from  the  cen- 
tre of  the  continent  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  waters  of 
which  may  mark  a  geographical  division,  but  really  constitute  a 
powerful  link  between  the  Northern  States  whence  they  flow,  and 
those  of  the  South,  in  the  centre  of  which  they  have  opened  a 
gap  abundantly  fertile. 

Let  us  sum  up  in  a  few  words  this  general  view  of  American 
rivers.  They  may  be  divided  into  two  parts — those  that  flow 
directly  into  the  sea,  and  those  which  unite  in  forming  the  Mis- 
sissip})i.  The  former  are  divided  into  two  distinct  basins,  that 
of  the  Atlantic  and  that  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  the  one  of  pecu- 
liar importance,  the  other  comparatively  insignificant  in  con- 
nection with  the  late  war.  In  the  vast  basin  of  the  Mississippi, 
composed  of  the  latter,  three  regions  may  be  observed — one  to 
northward,  whose  territory  was  respected  by  the  war ;  another  to 
westward,  yet  almost  a  desert;  and  a  third  to  south-eastward, 
which  alone  was  the  theatre  of  the  great  military  operations. 

The  war  we  are  about  to  describe  has  shown  what  great  advan- 


208  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

tage  an  army  could  derive  from  these  rivers,  especially  when  used 
in  combination  with  railways ;  nor  has  the  part  of  the  latter  been 
an  unimportant  one.  In  those  sections  of  America  which  Nature 
has  not  supplied  with  navigable  rivers,  railways  have  been  substi- 
tuted to  a  certain  extent,  but  they  are  far  from  possessing  the  same 
advantages.  On  the  one  hand,  being  constructed  on  principles 
of  economy,  they  have  only  a  single  track,  and  consequently  can 
only  transport  a  limited  amount  of  material ;  and  besides  their 
innumerable  bridges  and  long  viaducts  being  frail  wooden  struc- 
tures, always  at  the  mercy  of  a  single  spark,  travel  is  liable  to 
constant  interruptions.  An  army  in  retreat  easily  destroys  them 
in  its  rear,  and  compels  the  invader  who  wishes  to  pursue  to  re- 
construct them  under  great  disadvantages.  In  short,  a  happy 
coup-de-main  is  sufficient  to  cut  them  in  the  rear  of  an  enemy 
even  superior  in  numbers.  But  as  these  modes  of  conveyance 
for  forwarding  supplies  are  indispensable,  the  more  precarious 
they  are,  the  more  carefully  they  require  to  be  guarded,  and  con- 
sequently the  greater  their  bearing  upon  the  entire  conduct  of  the 
war. 

It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  render  the  narrative  explicit,  to  ex- 
plain the  system  of  railways  in  the  Southern  States,  which  form 
three  distinct  groups  in  the  three  basins  of  the  Atlantic,  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  Mississippi,  with  scarcely  any  connec- 
tion between  them. 

In  the  first  group  we  find  three  principal  lines  running  nearly 
parallel  to  the  coast.  One,  following  the  Alleghanies  along  their 
whole  range,  belongs  strategically  to  this  group,  although  its  prin- 
cipal portion  is  situated  ujx)n  the  opposite  slope  of  these  moun- 
tains ;  isolated  among  their  elevated  valleys,  it  runs  for  a  distance 
of  nearly  two  hundred  leagues  between  Lynchburg,  where  it  con- 
nects with  the  Virginia  lines,  and  Chattanooga,  where  it  strikes 
again  the  railways  of  the  Ohio  basin ;  its  length  and  direction 
prevent  its  being  an  effectual  link  between  the  two  groups.  The 
other  two  lines,  on  the  contrary,  are  intersected  by  cross-roads 
forming  numerous  junctions,  the  names  of  wliich  have  nearly  all 
fissured  in  the  war.  Alono^  the  line  which  runs  close  to  the  shore, 
rounding  the  gulfs  and  striking  the  sea  from  port  to  port,  it  is 
sufficient  to  mention  Richmond,  Petersburg,  Goldsborough,  "Wil- 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  209 

mington,  Charleston,  and  Savannah,  wliore  the  track  leaves  the 
Atlantic  basin  to  connect  with  that  of  the  Mexican  Gulf  at  Macon. 
A-long  the  intermediate  line  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea, 
we  find  the  names  of  Manassas,  Gordons ville.  Burkes ville,  Greens- 
borough,  Columbia,  Augusta,  and  finally  Atlanta,  which  is  its 
terminus.  At  Atlanta,  the  central  point  between  the  three  groups, 
we  also  find,  in  another  direction,  the  principal  artery  of  the  Gulf 
basin,  together  wath  an  important  branch  which,  availing  itself 
of  a  gap  in  the  Alleghanies,  runs  direct  from  Chattanooga  to 
connect  the  group  of  the  Ohio  basin  with  the  other  two  groups. 

The  States  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  more  recently 
settled  and  less  populated  than  those  of  the  East,  are  naturally 
ill  supplied  with  railways.  Yet  two  lines  contiguous  to  the 
Mississippi,  and  running  parallel  with  its  course,  connect  the 
great  ports  of  Mobile  and  New  Orleans  with  the  Middle  States  ; 
whilst  another,  having  one  terminus  at  Vicksburg  on  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  built  during  the  war,  for  the  purpose  of  opening  easy 
communications  with  Texas,  extends  as  far  as  Atlanta. 

In  the  Ohio  basin,  the  western  part,  already  exclusively  favored 
by  water-courses,  is  alone  in  possession  of  railways.  One  line, 
single  at  first,  which  runs  southward  from  Cincinnati  and  Lou- 
isville, forks  successively  at  Bowling  Green  and  Nashville,  and 
further  on  at  Hardinsville,  and  spreading  out  like  an  immense 
fan  south  of  Cumberland,  extends  its  numerous  arms  from  the 
foot  of  the  high  cliffs  which  terminate  the  Alleghany  range,  at  the 
very  point  where  the  navigation  of  the  Tennessee  commences — 
so  appropriately  called  Lookout  3Iountain — as  far  as  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi,  to  Columbus  at  the  west,  and  to  Memphis  at 
the  south. 

A  transversal  line  connecting  the  latter  city  with  Chattanooga, 
and  uniting  the  extremities  of  five  branches  of  this  fan,  was  not 
of  the  same  importance  for  military  operations  as  it  had  been 
before  in  a  commercial  point  of  view ;  being  exposed  in  flank, 
it  could  easily  be  cut  and  rendered  equally  useless  to  both  bel- 
ligerents. More  to  eastward,  the  vast  region  of  country  com- 
prised between  the  Ohio  and  the  Alleghanies,  already  without 
navigable  rivers,  is  also  deprived  of  railways ;  it  is  the  same  with 
the  section  of  country  extending  from  the  railway  running 
Vol.  I.— 14 


210  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

parallel  with  the  Mississippi  to  the  Chattanooga  gap,  and  sepa- 
rating the  Ohio  basin  from  that  of  the  Mexican  Gulf. 

Consequently,  the  raihvays  found  in  that  part  of  America 
which  was  the  theatre  of  the  war,  form  three  groups  correspond- 
ing with  the  three  basins  of  the  Atlantic,  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
and  the  Ohio  respectively.  They  are  only  connected  by  a  few 
lines  located  at  great  distances  from  each  other,  leaving  vast 
intervening  spaces  equally  inaccessible  to  the  locomotive  and 
to  the  steamboat.  These  spaces,  destitute  of  all  means  of  com- 
munication, extend  through  the  whole  length  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  separate  them  completely,  dividing  the  waters  into  two 
great  basins  and  the  railways  into  two  independent  systems. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  bearing  they  had  upon  the  war.  They 
present,  in  fact,  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the  march  of  an 
army  anxious  to  preserve  its  communications.  From  the  vicinity 
of  the  Mississippi  to  the  borders  of  the  Potomac  they  form  one 
continuous  line,  only  once  broken,  in  the  centre,  between  Chatta- 
nooga and  Atlanta.  This  was  the  weak  point  in  the  Southern 
armor  which,  after  the  loss  of  the  Ohio  basin,  could  have  protected 
the  heart  of  the  rebel  States,  by  compelling  the  Federals  to  attack 
them  at  either  of  the  two  extremities,  through  the  borders  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Chesapeake,  or  by  landing  upon  an  inhospit- 
able coast.  It  was  through  this  flaw  in  the  cuirass  that  we  shall 
see  Sherman  thrustino;  his  formidable  sword.  It  was  owino-  to  this 
railway  from  Chattanooga  to  Atlanta  that  he  was  able  not  only 
to  reach  the  latter  place,  but  to  establish  himself  in  it  and  make 
it  the  point  of  departure  for  his  decisive  campaign  in  Georgia. 

But  at  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  it  was  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Ohio  that  the  conflict  Avas  about  to  begin,  and  the 
division  we  have  laid  down  in  the  network  of  rivers  and  rail- 
ways will  share  in  the  first  military  operations  in  three  distinct 
zones,  each  of  which  will  have  the  banks  of  one  of  these  rivers 
as  the  scene  of  action. 

As  we  progress  with  our  narrative,  the  very  examples  it  fur- 
nishes will  demonstrate  more  clearly  than  anything  we  could 
say  in  this  place,  the  importance  and  the  sj^ecial  use  to  be  made 
©f  the  ways  of  communication  both  by  water  and  rail.  We  shall 
therefore  confine  ourselves  to  a  few  words  in  justification  of  the 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  211 

foregoing  lengthy  description,  and  to  show  that  !t  M'as  an  indis- 
pensable introduction  to  the  history  of  the  war. 

We  shall  see  the  rivers  performing  a  double  part  in  the 
strategic  movements.  On  the  one  hand,  they  secure  unlimited 
resources  for  revictualling  the  armies,  being  accessible  to  an  in- 
definite number  of  steamers,  which  can  convey  the  supplies  and 
reinforcements  that  are  needed.  On  the  other  hand,  they  afford 
armies  powerful  means  for  assuming  the  offensive,  by  enabling 
ships  of  war  to  support  their  movements  and  protect  their  lines 
of  communication  in  proportion  as  they  are  extended.  Rail- 
ways, on  the  contrary,  with  their  limited  capacity  for  transporta- 
tion, are  an  instrument  purely  defensive;  they  cannot  support 
the  movements  of  an  aggressor,  who  is  obliged  to  regulate  his 
march  according  to  the  greater  or  lesser  rapidity  with  which 
they  can  be  reconstructed. 

The  two  essential  requisites,  therefore,  for  directing  the  move- 
ments of  an  army  are — first,  to  secure  a  safe  channel  of  transporta- 
tion for  its  supplies,  and  then  to  know  how  far  it  can  venture  from 
the  river  or  the  railway  by  means  of  which  those  supplies  are 
received.  Consequently,  while  in  those  countries  that  abound  in 
provisions,  like  Europe,  an  army  extends  its  lines  for  the  purpose 
of  procuring  sustenance,  and  concentrates  to  fight,  in  America, 
the  larger  the  army,  the  greater  the  necessity  for  concentration  in 
order  to  obtain  provisions;  because,  being  able  to  procure  scarcely 
anything  from  the  country  it  occupies,  the  more  its  lines  are 
extended,  the  more  difficult  it  becomes  for  those  who  are  at  a 
distance  from  their  only  sources  of  supply  to  procure  food. 

In  order  to  calculate  the  distance  to  which  an  army  may  ven- 
ture from  the  dep6ts  established  at  the  railway  stations  or  river 
landings  which  constitute  the  base  of  its  operations,  we  must 
begin  by  premising  that  there  are  no  roads,  in  the  European  sense 
of  the  term,  which  can  connect  this  base  with  the  various  posi- 
tions occupied  by  the  army.  Cross-roads  disappear  rapidly  under 
the  combined  effects  of  the  first  rain  and  the  incessant  passing  of 
wagons ;  nev/  ones  have  to  be  opened  across  fields  and  woods, 
and  these  must  be  kept  constantly  in  order,  to  prevent  their  being 
rendered  impassable  at  the  end  of  a  few  days.  The  number  of 
mouths  to  be  fed  is  the  criterion  by  which  to  determine  this  dis- 


212  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

tance;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  a  road  can  only  be  made  available 
for  a  certain  number  of  wagons,  while  on  the  other,  even  if  several 
practicable  roads  be  opened,  an  army  cannot  be  accompanied  by 
an  unlimited  number  of  wagons  without  embarrassing  all  its 
movements. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  American  soldier  consumed 
nearly  three  pounds  of  food  per  day;  if  to  this  we  add  ammuni- 
tion of  every  kind,  personal  accoutrements,  and  all  that  is  neces- 
sary for  the  maintenance  of  troops,  it  will  be  readily  admitted 
that  the  average  weight  of  articles  to  be  transported  for  the 
necessities  of  a  large  American  army  is  about  four  pounds  daily 
to  each  man,  without  counting  the  food  for  horses  and  mules, 
which  amounts  to  about  twenty-five  pounds  for  each  animal. 
The  American  wagon,  drawn  by  six  mules,  carries  a  load  of  2000 
pounds,  sufficient,  therefore,  to  supply  500  men,  provided  it  can 
make  the  trip  daily,  going  and  returning,  between  the  army 
and  its  depots.  If  the  distance  to  be  traveled  is  such  as  to  re- 
quire a  whole  day's  march,  one  day  being  lost  in  returning 
empty,  it  will  only  be  able  to  supply  500  men  every  other  day, 
or  250  daily.  To  go  a  distance  of  two  days'  march  from  its  base 
of  operations  is  a  very  small  matter  for  an  army  that  is  manoeu- 
vring in  front  of  the  enemy,  and  yet,  according  to  this  computa- 
tion, it  will  require  four  wagons  to  supply  500  men  with  provis- 
ions, or  eight  for  1000,  and  consequently  800  for  100,000  men. 
If  this  army  of  100,000  men  has  16,000  cavalry  and  artillery 
horses,  a  small  number  comparatively  speaking,  200  more 
wagons  will  be  required  to  carry  their  daily  forage,  and,  there- 
fore, 800  to  transport  it  to  a  distance  of  two  days'  march. 
These  1600  wagons  are,  in  their  turn,  drawn  by  9600  mules, 
which,  also  consuming  twenty-five  pounds  during  each  of  the 
three  days  out  of  four  they  are  away  from  the  depot,  require 
360  wagons  more  to  carry  their  forage ;  these  360  wagons  are 
drawn  by  2400  animals,  and  in  order  to  transport  the  food  required 
by  the  latter,  92  additional  wagons  are  necessary.  Adding 
twenty  wagons  more,  for  general  purposes,  we  shall  find  that  2000 
wagons,  drawn  by  12,000  animals,  are  strictly  necessary  to  victual 
an  army  of  1(^0,000  men  and  16,000  horses  at  only  two  days' 
march  from  its  base  of  operations.     In  the  same  proportion,  if 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  213 

this  army  finds  itself  separated  from  its  base  of  operations  by 
three  days'  march,  3760  wagons,  drawn  by  22,000  animals,  will  be 
found  indispensable  for  that  service.  This  calculation  does  not 
take  into  account  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  transportation; 
for  if  these  wagons  are  necessary  to  convey  the  materials  as  far 
as  the  depots  of  the  division,  the  others  are  required  to  distrib- 
ute them  afterwards  among  the  regiments ;  an  army,  in  fact, 
is  obliged  to  keep  a  number  of  such  wagons  constantly  with  it  in 
order  to  secure  a  certain  degree  of  mobility  and  to  be  able  to  send 
a  few  detachments  forward,  accompanied  by  a  wagon-train  car- 
rying several  days'  provisions.  Thus  an  American  army  of 
100,000  men  with  nearly  4000  wagons,  from  2000  to  3000  of 
which  pass  and  repass  over  three  or  four  parallel  roads,  the  dis- 
tance of  two  days'  march,  or  about  forty  or  fifty  kilometres,  had 
established  for  it,  during  the  war,  the  utmost  distance  to  which 
it  could  venture  from  its  base  of  operations,  while  continuing  to 
receive  its  supplies  from  that  source. 

In  an  offensive  campaign,  therefore,  an  army  cannot  go  beyond 
two  days'  march  without  at  the  same  time  removing  its  depots. 
If  it  follows  a  line  of  railway,  it  must  stop  and  wait  for  the  re- 
pairing of  the  track  as  far  as  the  new  point  where  it  wishes  to 
establish  them.  If  its  line  of  march  lies  contiguous  to  a  river,  it 
is  generally  accompanied  by  a  fleet  of  transports,  which,  by  reason 
of  their  flat  bottoms,  can  be  run  upon  any  beach  and  their  cargoes 
speedily  landed.  If  it  has  to  pass  through  a  country  deprived  of 
easy  communications,  it  may  abandon  the  base  of  operations  upon 
which  it  has  rested  and  go  in  search  of  another ;  this  apparently 
bold  movement  proved  successful  with  all  those  who  tried  it,  either 
for  the  purpose  of  striking  the  head  of  some  railway  already  occu- 
pied by  friendly  troops,  or  for  securing  new  positions  on  the  margin 
of  some  distant  river,  where  the  fleet  could  again  overtake  the 
army  and  revictual  it.  By  thus  advancing  its  base  of  operations 
on  the  same  line,  or  by  changing  from  one  line  to  another,  the 
wagons  were  relieved  of  two  trips;  and  by  taking  them  along 
loaded  with  provisions,  it  doubled  the  number  of  days  during 
which  the  troops  could  march  in  an  enemy's  country.  A  certain 
number  of  rations  in  the  haversack  of  each  soldier  increased 
the  number  of  days,  while  herds  of  cattle,  at  the  season  of  the 


214  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

year  when  they  could  find  pasturage  in  the  vicihity  of  the  army, 
afforded  a  supplementary  resource.  In  proportion  as  he  ac- 
quired experience  in  war,  the  Federal  soldier  became  more  sober, 
more  sparing  of  his  rations,  and  learnt  at  the  same  time  to 
carry  a  heavier  load  on  his  shoulders.  Among  the  necessary  ele- 
ments for  calculating  the  number  of  days  he  could  remain  separated 
from  his  depots,  there  are  some,  as  will  be  seen,  which  are  essen- 
tially variable.  We  shall  confine  ourselves,  in  regard  to  these,  to 
the  figures  furnished  by  the  experience  of  the  same  army  at  two 
different  epochs  of  the  war.  In  October,  1862,  McClellan  being 
desirous  to  move  his  quarters  from  the  head  of  one  line  of  railway 
to  another,  as  we  will  show  presently,  with  an  army  of  122,000 
men — an  operation  which  might  oblige  him  to  subsist  for  ten  days 
without  any  other  supplies  than  those  he  carried  with  him, — these 
supplies  were  transported  by  a  train  of  1830  wagons.  These 
wagons  were  drawn  by  10,980  animals ;  there  were  besides  5046 
cavalry  horses,  and  6836  belonging  to  the  artillery ;  in  order  to 
carry  ten  days'  complete  rations  of  forage  for  these  animals,  it  re- 
quired a  second  train,  with  an  addition  of  17,832  beasts,  which 
had  to  supply  the  40,664  horses  or  mules  which  in  some  capacity 
or  other  thus  followed  the  army,  with  half  rations,  the  country 
through  which  that  army  passed  having  to  furnish  the  rest.  This 
enormous  figure  only  comprised  the  transportation  of  provisions, 
exclusive  of  ammunition  and  of  the  sick  and  wounded.  In  May, 
1864,  this  same  army  was  of  nearly  the  same  strength,  num- 
bering 125,000  men,  29,945  cavalry  horses,  and  4046  belonging 
to  officers,  4300  wagons,  and  835  ambulances — 56,499  animals  in 
all — when  it  took  the  field  under  the  command  of  Grant,  pre- 
pared to  fight  and  march  for  three  weeks,  if  necessary,  before  re- 
joining any  of  its  depots.  The  rations  had  been  greatly  diminished, 
and  the  soldiers  were  accustomed  to  carry  heavy  loads ;  they  had 
three  full  rations  in  their  knapsacks  and  three  days'  allowance  of 
biscuits  in  their  haversacks  ;  each  wagon  having  capacity  for  1400 
small  rations,  the  train  could  furnish  ten  days'  provisions  and 
forage,  while  the  droves  of  beef-cattle  that  accompanied  the  army 
provided  for  three  more.  So  that,  while  McClellan  had  only  pro- 
visionfc  for  ten  days  at  the  utmost,  two  years  later.  Grant,  with  the 
same  army  and  the  same  resources,  was  able  to  take  with  him 


RIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  215 

sixteen  days'  supply.  These  figures  fully  show  that  experience 
iu  the  war  had  succeeded  in  rendering  certain  operations  possi- 
ble which,  in  the  beginning,  were  not  so  with  the  improvised 
troops  whose  first  campaigns  we  are  about  to  narrate. 

The  amount  of  transportation  that  can  be  effected  by  means  of 
railways  enters  as  a  no  less  important  element  in  the  movements 
of  armies,  and  will  prove  a  source  of  embarrassment  when  those 
armies  are  large  and  depend  upon  a  single  line  for  their  supplies. 
Frequent  examples  of  this  will  appear  in  our  narrative ;  conse- 
quently, the  organization  of  the  railway  service,  and  the  skill 
with  which  all  its  details  were  regulated,  contributed  essentially 
to  success  during  this  difficult  war.  We  will  only  cite  one  in- 
stance at  present — that  of  Hooker's  army,  23,000  strong,  which 
in  1863  was  transported  with  all  its  materiel,  its  horses  and 
wagons,  from  the  Rapidan  to  Stevenson  in  Alabama,  a  distance 
of  nearly  2000  kilometres,  by  rail  in  seven  days.  This  shows 
the  great  services  railways  were  able  to  render  by  concentrat- 
ing an  army  on  any  given  point  of  the  continent;  but  it  was 
much  easier  to  accomplish  a  movement  of  this  kind  than  to 
supply  a  large  army  daily  with  provisions  at  the  terminus  of 
one  of  those  long  sino-le-track  lines  which  run  throug-h  the  South- 
ern  States;  in  fact,  their  rude  construction  required  constant 
repairs,  and  consequently  occasioned  frequent  interruptions,  so 
that  beyond  a  certain  distance,  varying  naturally  according 
to  circumstances,  they  were  not  sufficient  to  transport  the  re- 
quired supply  without  the  aid  of  another  line,  or,  better  still, 
of  a  river. 

Naturally,  the  amount  of  transportation  that  could  be  made  by 
water  was  only  limited  by  the  number  of  vessels  at  hand.  But,  as 
we  have  said  before,  the  rivers  afford  at  once  the  best  means  lor 
provisioning  an  army,  and  a  powerful  auxiliary  for  all  offensive 
operations.  We  shall  always  find,  therefore,  that  whenever  the 
Federals  were  supported  by  a  river,  their  progress  was  certain 
and  their  conquests  decisive;  whilst  the  successes  they  obtained 
by  following  a  simple  line  of  railways  were  always  precarious, 
new  dangers  springing  up  in  their  rear  in  proportion  as  they 
advanced.     The  revictualling  of  an  army  in  sight  of  the  enemy 


216  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

by  a  fleet  of  transports,  the  bombardment  of  fortified  places, 
constructed  for  the  purpose  of  impeding  navigation,  and  the 
naval  battles  fought  upon  the  rivers  will  occujDy  so  considerable 
a  space  in  the  history  of  this  war,  that  the  combined  operations 
by  land  and  water  may  be  regarded  as  imparting  to  it  an  entirely 
distinctive  character  among  all  modern  wars.  The  appellation  of 
fresh-water  sailor,  instead  of  being  a  term  of  contempt,  should  be 
in  America  a  mark  of  honorable  distinction. 

A  few  words  at  the  conclusion  of  this  chapter  will  suffice  to 
convey  an  idea  of  the  causes  which  imparted  a  strategic  import- 
ance to  certain  points  situated  along  the  water-courses  or  line  of 
railways.  The  latter  being  everywhere  vulnerable,  and  not  ad- 
mitting of  defence  by  means  of  posts  throughout  their  whole  ex- 
tent, it  was  found  necessary  to  fortify  stations  at  the  intersection 
of  several  lines,  chosen  because  they  were  the  most  convenient 
places  for  depots,  and  because  whoever  was  in  possession  of 
them  could  at  once  intercept  all  the  lines  which  crossed  at  such 
points.  The  great  American  rivers,  on  the  contrary,  being  never 
liable  to  obstruction,  the  most  important  points  to  occupy  along 
their  courses  were  those  where  it  was  most  easy  to  erect  batteries 
which  could,  by  their  fire,  interrupt  the  navigation ;  these  were  gen- 
erally the  cliifs  which  rise  in  certain  localities  above  the  low  flats 
yrhich  border  nearly  all  the  rivers  of  the  new  continent,  for,  from 
their  height,  they  protected  the  batteries  which  crowned  their  sum- 
mits, from  the  fire  of  gun-boats. 

It  will  be  seen,  in  short,  that  the  most  important  points  were 
those  at  which  one  or  more  lines  of  railway  crossed  a  navigable 
river  or  were  arrested  by  its  banks ;  for  it  was  at  such  points  that 
those  immense  supplies  which  were  afterwards  to  be  conveyed  by 
rail  to  the  armies  in  the  interior  were  to  arrive  by  water. 

These  two  modes  of  communication,  which  we  may  be  pardoned 
for  having  dwelt  upon  at  such  length,  were  therefore  so  combined 
and  perfected  as  to  render  possible  the  concentration  of  such 
armies  as  America  had  never  before  seen.  Consequently,  these 
armies  could  not  separate  themselves  from  these  points  of  com- 
munication for  any  length  of  time  —  a  singular  circumstance 
which  was  to  exercise  a  powerful  and  abiding  influence  on  the  war. 


BIVERS  AND  RAILWAYS.  217 

We  have  shown  in  advance  how  the  combatants  learnt  by  de- 
grees to  take  the  greatest  possible  advantage  of  these  ways  of 
communication.  It  will  be  seen  a  little  later  how  dearly  that 
experience  cost  them. 

After  this  necessary  digression,  we  resume  our  narrative  at  the 
moment  when  the  conflict  is  about  to  commence  in  earnest. 


CHAPTER  II. 

BULL  BUN. 

ON  the  4th  of  July,  1861,  the  anniversary  of  the  founda- 
tion of  the  United  States,  an  extra  session  of  the  new  Con- 
gress which  had  been  elected  a  few  months  before  was  convened 
by  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  assembled  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
Never  had  the  representatives  of  the  nation  met  under  such  grave 
circumstances.  Four  months  had  elapsed  since  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
taken  the  constitutional  oath  in  that  same  edifice,  and  the  sad 
forebodings  which  at  that  time  alarmed  all  true  patriots  had 
been  realized.  The  insurgents  had  fired  the  first  shot;  they 
had  carried  with  them  nearly  all  the  slave  States;  their 
sentinels,  stationed  in  the  woods  adjoining  the  Potomac,  watched 
the  capital ;  war  had  commenced,  and  it  imposed  upon  the 
Federal  government  the  colossal  task  of  reconquering  one-third 
of  the  national  territory.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  States 
loyal  to  the  Union  had  not  been  shaken  either  by  the  solicitations 
of  the  insurgents  or  by  their  constitutional  theories ;  they  had 
displayed  a  determination  to  undergo  every  sacrifice  in  defence  of 
the  Republic,  and  had  already  raised  300,000  men  for  that 
object ;  they  had  found  a  chief  who  loyally  represented  their  sen- 
timents, and  whose  only  care  was  to  perform  the  duties  incum- 
bent upon  him  with  firmness. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  shown  no  weakness  when  treason  surrounded 
him  on  every  side.  Having  measured  the  magnitude  of  the 
danger,  he  had  taken  extraordinary  steps  to  avert  it;  he  had 
issued  two  calls  for  volunteers,  and  had  authorized  expenses  for 
their  equipment  which  the  budget  had  not  contemplated  ;  he  had,  in 
short,  yielded  to  the  necessity  of  suspending  the  ordinary  guaran- 
tees of  personal  liberty  in  order  to  maintain  his  authority  in  cities 
like  Baltimore  and  St.  Louis,  where  it  had  been  assailed  by  armed 
force.  Owing  to  these  measures,  the  insurrection  had  been  limited 
and  deprived  of  some  of  the  most  imj)ortant  strategic  positions. 

218 


LD   OF  BULL  IVUN.  e 


Scale  of  „i'ooo 


Scale;  T^in=lMile. 


Bark  t.j\rFetndge  lilh  PM'!- 
6   Miles. 


BULL  RUN.  219 

The  armies  destined  to  participate  in  this  struggle  were  being 
rapidly  organized,  and  50,000  soldiers  already  protected  the 
capital.  But  the  President  made  haste  to  have  his  acts  legalized 
by  the  national  representatives,  and  to  ask  for  additional  means 
to  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  war  the  proportions  of  wdiich  could 
not  then  be  realized. 

The  insurgent  States  having  sent  neither  Senators  nor  Repre- 
sentatives to  Washington,  only  twenty-three  States  were  repre- 
sented in  the  Senate,  and  twenty-two,  with  one  Territory,  in  the 
other  house.  The  Unionists,  composed  principally  of  Republicans 
and  a  small  number  of  "War  Democrats,  were  therefore  absolutely 
in  the  ascendant  in  both  of  these  assemblies,  and  assured  the 
President  of  the  energetic  support  and  co-operation  of  Congress. 

The  accord  between  these  two  parties  was  the  best  refutation 
of  the  sinister  predictions  gratuitously  circulated  by  the  enemies 
of  the  great  American  democracy,  who  announced  its  impending 
dissolution  to  the  Old  World.  It  was,  above  all,  the  best 
answer  to  the  attitude  assumed  by  most  of  the  European  govern- 
ments, who,  before  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  had  with 
unseemly  haste  exercised  their  right  to  proclaim  their  neutrality. 
In  reference  to  a  civil  war  such  as  we  are  about  to  describe, 
this  right  was  certainly  unquestionable;  the  importance  of  that 
war  rendered  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  prescribe  and  point  out 
to  their  citizens  the  duties  of  neutrality.  But  the  real  wrong 
committed  by  them  towards  America  was  in  openly  tolerating  a 
violation  of  that  neutrality.  In  recognizing  the  belligerent 
rights  of  the  insurgents  even  before  the  latter  had  become  bel- 
ligerents, they  had  prejudged  a  question  which  did  not  lie 
within  their  province;  they  had  exhibited  feelings  of  hostility  to- 
wards a  great  nation ;  they  had  distrusted  her  at  a  moment  when 
she  was  making  patriotic  efforts  to  preserve  her  unity ;  and 
if  they  did  not  overstep  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  strict  re- 
quirements of  international  law,  they  had  nevertheless  made  a 
great  political  mistake. 

The  French  government  Avas  to  find  a  powerful  argument  in 
favor  of  Csesarism  in  the  misfortunes  of  a  liberal  democracy,  and 
its  wishes  for  the  success  of  the  insurgents  were  not  a  matter  of 
secret  to  any  one.     Public  opinion  in  England  was  very  much 


220  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

divided;  the  great  majority  of  the  higher  classes  and  most  of 
the  public  journals,  actuated  by  old  antipathies  and  dreading  the 
triumph  of  democratic  ideas,  were  openly  hostile  to  the  cause 
of  the  North;  the  radical  party,  on  the  contrary,  and  all  the 
working  classes,  manifested  the  liveliest  sympathy  for  it.  The 
attitude  of  the  radicals  and  the  workingmen  prevented  the  Eng- 
lish government  from  recognizing  the  independence  of  the  new 
Confederacy,  notwithstanding  the  solicitations  of  France,  who,  it  is 
said,  was  even  ready  to  propose  to  interfere  conjointly  with  Great 
Britain  in  American  affairs.  But  the  latter  power  hastened  to  issue 
a  proclamation  of  neutrality  on  the  13th  of  May,  a  few  days  before 
the  arrival  in  London  of  the  new  representative  of  the  United 
States,  and  as  if  to  prevent  any  explanations  which  Mr.  Adams 
might  have  wished  to  offer.  The  French  government  followed  this 
example  on  the  11th  of  June.  America,  therefore,  who  had  a  right 
to  rely  upon  the  sympathies  of  abolitionist  England  in  her 
struggle  with  slavery,  and  upon  those  of  the  land  of  Rochambeau 
and  La  Fayette,  in  her  efforts  to  preserve  the  work  of  Wash- 
ington, only  found  in  the  governments  of  those  two  countries 
doubting  spectators,  who  like  the  friends  of  Job  were  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  her  misfortunes  in  order  to  teach  her  a  lesson. 
Russia,  on  the  contrary,  being  more  shrewd,  hastened  to  tender 
her  those  assurances  of  deep  interest  to  which,  in  the  hour  of 
great  trial,  nations  are  as  sensitive  as  individuals,  and  showed 
thereby  a  political  foresight  in  striking  reproof  of  the  other  Eu- 
ropean powers. 

The  partisans  of  the  insurgents,  who  under  the  name  of  Peace 
Democrats  followed  the  lead  of  Mr.  Breckenridge  in  the  Senate, 
and  of  Mr.  Vallandigham  in  the  other  house,  formed  only  a  small 
minority  in  Congress.  Their  efforts,  therefore,  to  thwart  the  meas- 
ures of  the  government  in  support  of  the  war  were  to  prove  fruitless. 
The  Senators  from  the  rebel  States,  who,  instead  of  repairing  to 
Washington,  had  entered  the  service  of  the  insurrection,  were  de- 
prived of  their  seats ;  the  extraordinary  measures  adopted  by  Mr. 
Lincohi  were  sanctioned;  the  increase  of  the  regular  army  and 
navy  and  the  necessary  expenses  for  constructing  railways  and 
military  telegraphs  were  approved;  a  loan  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty   million   dollars   was  authorized,  pending  the  aloption  of 


BULL  RUN.  221 

more  complete  fiscal  measures;  and  on  the  13th  of  July,  Congress 
began  to  discuss  the  most  important  of  all  the  laws  which  the 
urgency  of  the  situation  required — that  authorizing  a  large  ad- 
ditional levy  of  volunteers.  In  the  second  volume  we  shall  re- 
turn to  the  legislative  labors  of  this  session  and  of  those  which 
followed.  Setting  aside  for  the  present  the  discussion  of  the 
military  law,  which  was  to  occupy  Congress  for  some  time,  although 
the  issue  had  never  been  doubtful,  we  shall  now  follow  the  mil- 
itary operations  to  which,  since  the  early  part  of  July,  McClellan 
had  given  a  fresh  impulse  in  West  Virginia. 

This  region  is  divided  into  two  sections — on  one  side,  an  un- 
dulating plateau,  fertile  and  well  watered,  extending  between  the 
Ohio  and  the  mountains ;  on  the  other,  the  region  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  composed  of  long  parallel  ridges,  enclosing  deep  valleys 
— a  wild  country,  without  roads  and  easy  to  defend. 

As  we  have  already  stated,  the  troops  sent  by  the  State  of  Ohio 
had,  after  a  few  skirmishes,  occupied  all  the  northern  part  of  the 
plateau,  and  covered  the  line  of  railways  wliich  crosses  it.  But 
the  Confederates  were  preparing  to  dispute  once  more  the  pos- 
session of  this  region  of  country.  They  had  massed  tronjrs  along 
the  lower  course  of  the  Great  Kanawha,  a  river  which,  running  from 
east  to  west,  divides  the  plain  into  two  ])arts,  and  General  Garnett, 
while  waiting  for  reinforcements  from  Richmond,  had  posted  him- 
self along  the  westernmost  ridge  of  the  mountain  region  ;  he  thus 
faced  to  the  west,  occupying  the  i:)asses  whence  he  could  descend 
upon  his  adversary,  and  resting  his  rear  upon  a  country  easily 
defended.  This  ridge,  which  extends  from  south  to  north,  separates 
the  large  and  rich  valley  of  the  upper  Monongahela  from  two  of 
the  principal  tributaries  of  its  loM-er  course — the  Tygart 
Valley  River  and  the  Cheat  River — and  bears  successively 
the  names  of  Rich  Mountain  at  the  south  and  Laurel  Hill 
at  the  north:  the  general  direction  of  all  these  waters  is  from 
south  to  north.  The  great  turnpike,  which  runs  through  the 
centre  of  Virginia  and  descends  afterward  into  the  valley  of  the 
Monongahela,  passes  behind  the  Rich  Mountain  and  Laurel  Hill 
ridge,  first  through  the  two  villages  of  Beverly,  and  of  Leedsville 
more  to  northward.  This  is  the  turnpike  which  Garnett  under- 
took to  cover,  and  he  occupied  the  only  two  passes  where  roads 


222  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

starting  from  these  two  villages  cross  Rich  Mountain  an.l  Laurel 
Hill  to  descend  into  the  plain.  These  passes  were  defended  by 
abatis  and  earthworks  furnished  with  artillery.  Garnett  had  sta- 
tioned Colonel  Pegram  with  2000  men  in  the  first  of  these  passes, 
and  had  himself  taken  a  position  in  the  second  with  the  rest  of 
his  forces,  amounting  to  about  3000  men.  This  position,  naturally 
very  strong,  had  the  disadvantage  of  lying  parallel  with  the  road  it 
had  to  cover ;  to  pierce  it  at  a  single  point,  therefore,  sufficed  to  cut 
off  the  retreat  of  the  troops  who  occupied  it.  McClellan  determined 
to  do  this  as  soon  as  he  had  a  sufficient  force  to  take  the  offensive. 
Toward  the  end  of  June  he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  five 
brigades,  composed,  it  is  true,  of  entirely  new  troops,  whose 
organization  left  much  to  be  desired.  It  was,  however,  neces- 
sary to  act;  Cox's  brigade  was  sent  to  the  lower  Kanawha  to 
watch  the  enemy  massed  on  that  side,  with  whom  it  only  had 
some  trifling  engagements;  Hill's  brigade  remained  to  guard  the 
railways  and  the  posts  which  connected  West  Virginia  with 
the  troops  stationed  along  the  upper  Potomac;  finally,  McClellan 
divided  the  forces  with  which  he  intended  to  attack  Garnett  and 
Pegram  into  two  columns.  The  first,  composed  of  Morris's 
brigade, » occupied  Philippi,  on  the  road  leading  to  Leedsville  by 
way  of  Laurel  Hill :  it  was  determined  that  this  column  should 
make  a  demonstration  against  that  position  so  as  to  draw  Garnett's 
attention,  while  the  other  was  to  cut  off  his  retreat  by  taking 
possession  of  Rich  Mountain,  where  he  had  committed  the  error 
of  not  concentrating  the  bulk  of  his  forces.  McClellan  intended 
to  conduct  this  operation  in  person  with  the  brigades  of  Schleich 
and  Rosecrans ;  these  brigades  were  posted  at  Buckannon,  a  vil- 
lage where  the  road  running  from  Beverly  through  the  defile  of 
Rich  Mountain  crosses  that  branch  of  the  Monongahela  which 
lower  down  waters  the  towm  of  Philippi.  This  small  army,  num- 
bering about  10,000  men,  took  up  its  line  of  march  on  the  6th 
of  July,  and  on  the  10th,  after  some  insignificant  encounters, 
McClellan,  whose  troops  were  ranged  along  the  slo])es  of  Rich 
Mountain,  found  himself  before  the  works  occupied  by  Pegram. 
Not  wishing  to  attack  them  in  front  with  inexperienced  soldiers, 
he  detached  Rosecrans  upon  his  right,  on  the  morning  of  the  11th, 
to  turn  their  flank  and  take  them  in  rear. 


BULL  RUN.  223 

A  path,  only  accessible  to  foot-soldiers,  wound  up  the  sidea 
of  Rich  Mountain,  south  of  the  defile  where  the  road  from 
Beverly  to  Buckannon  passes.  Rosecrans,  leaving  his  artillery 
behind  him,  was  to  follow  this  path — which  the  enemy  would  not 
probably  dream  of  defending — with  2000  men,  and,  once  on  the 
summit  of  the  ridge,  was  to  proceed  in  a  northerly  direction  to 
the  defile  in  order  to  descend  by  the  road  and  attack  Pegram's 
positions  in  rear.  As  soon  as  the  sound  of  musketry  was  heard, 
the  troops  stationed  at  the  foot  of  those  positions  were  to  attack 
them  in  front,  thus  hemming  in  the  enemy  on  all  sides.  After  a 
very  fatiguing  march  the  young  soldiers  of  Rosecrans  reached  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  without  striking  a  blow ;  but  before  they 
had  time  to  gain  the  defile,  they  were  atta,cked  by  the  enemy,  to 
whom  an  intercepted  dispatch  had  revealed  their  movement, 
and  who  had  sent  five  or  six  hundred  men  to  stop  them.  They 
fought  this  detachment,  but,  being  exhausted  by  fatigue,  they  re- 
mained on  the  spot  where  the  conflict  had  taken  place,  and  allowed 
the  whole  day  to  pass  without  availing  themselves  of  the  advan- 
tage thus  gained  in  order  to  complete  the  prescribed  movement. 
McClellan,  whom  Rosecrans  had  neglected  to  inform  of  this  delay, 
waited  the  whole  day  in  vain  for  the  signal  agreed  upon,  and,  on 
the  following  morning,  all  that  he  found  before  him  were  the 
deserted  intrenchments.  On  finding  himself  taken  in  flank, 
Pegram  had  sought  the  means  of  escape  from  the  danger  that 
threatened  him  in  a  hasty  retreat;  but  most  of  his  soldiers 
disbanded,  and  he  wandered  about  during  two  days  with  the 
remnants  of  his  brigade,  trying  in  vain  to  effect  a  junction  with 
Garnett.  Finally,  McClellan,  having  preceded  him  to  Beverly, 
on  the  Leedsville  road,  occupied  the  former  village  on  the  12th 
of  July,  and  on  the  following  day  Pegram  and  six  hundred  of 
his  companions  were  compelled  to  lay  down  their  arms. 

While  his  lieutenant  was  beino;  dislodo-ed  from  Rich  Mountain, 
Garnett  allowed  himself  to  be  amused  by  Morris  at  Laurel  Hill, 
little  dreaming  of  the  danger  that  threatened  him.  Fortunately 
for  him,  he  was  informed  by  Pegram  of  the  evacuation  of  Rich 
Mountain  on  the  very  night  it  took  place.  Without  losing  a 
minute,  he  abandoned  Laurel  Hill  in  his  turn  before  daybreak, 
and  proceeded  in  great  haste  towards  Beverly,  where  he  hoped  to 


224  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

join  Pegram  and  find  the  southern  route  still  open  to  him.  But 
McClellan  had  preceded  him  there  by  a  few  hours  with  a  force 
which  the  Confederate  general  did  not  deem  it  prudent  to  attack. 
The  position  of  the  latter  was  critical  in  the  extreme.  He  had 
become  entangled  in  a  narrow  pass  between  the  two  impassable 
ridges  of  Rich  Mountain  and  Cheat  Mountain ;  he  found  its 
southern  extremity,  through  which  he  might  have  reached  the 
interior  of  Virginia,  in  possession  of  the  enemy,  while  the  trocps 
who  watched  him  at  Laurel  Hill  had  only  to  follow  in  his  tracks 
in  order  to  surround  him  completely.  He  could  find  no  means 
of  escape  except  to  the  northward,  by  descending  the  valley  of 
Cheat  River  through  difi&cult  roads,  and  striking  the  frontier  of 
Maryland  in  order  to  force  his  way  into  the  upper  gorges  of  the 
Alleghanies.  Retracing  his  steps  as  soon  as  he  was  apprised  of 
the  presence  of  McClellan  at  Beverly,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to 
pass  once  more  through  Leedsville  before  Morris,  who  had  not 
watched  him  sufficiently,  had  arrived  there  from  Laurel  Hill. 
But  his  troops,  exhausted  by  the  rapid  countermarch,  soon  fell 
into  disorder.  Morris,  who  had  reached  Leedsville  shortly  after 
him,  harassed  his  retreat,  and  finally  overtook  him  at  Carricks- 
ford,  twelve  kilometres  below  St.  George,  just  as  he  was  crossing 
Cheat  River.  The  Confederates  succeeded  in  placing  the  river 
between  them  and  their  assailants,  but  left  in  their  hands  all  their 
artillery,  their  baggage,  and  about  fifty  prisoners. 

Garnett  himself  M^as  killed  while  bravely  endeavoring  to  repair 
the  disaster.  This  old  regular  officer  was  the  first  general  who  lost 
his  life  in  the  war.  After  his  death  his  soldiers  dispersed,  thus  baf- 
fling the  efforts  of  the  Federals,  who  were  too  much  fatigued  to  con- 
tinue long  in  pursuit;  and  afc  the  end  of  an  eight  days'  campaign, 
McClellan  was  able  to  announce  to  his  government  that  the  Fed- 
eral authority  was  re-established  in  West  Virginia,  and  that  the  Con- 
federates had  even  abandoned  the  borders  of  the  Great  Kanawha. 

This  campaign  had  moreover  delivered  into  his  hands  more 
than  one  thousand  prisoners  and  all  the  war-material  of  the 
enemy,  and  had  only  cost  him  a  few  hundred  men.  His  plan 
had  been  well  conceived,  vigorously  executed,  and  a  complete 
success  had  crowned  this  first  essay  in  strategy.  He  had  the  good 
fortune  to  have  a  rather  meagre  army  to  manage,  although  supe- 


BULL  RUN.  i  225 

rior  in  number  to  that  of  the  enemy :  its  sraallness  enabled  it 
to  subsist  in  a  very  poor  country,  and  he  had  the  rare  merit  of 
leading;  inexperienced  troops  successfully  through  marches  and 
countermarches.  We  have  seen,  however,  that  these  troops, 
in  consequence  of  their  having  halted  too  soon  for  rest,  came 
near  losing  him  all  the  fruits  of  the  campaign. 

The  possession  of  West  Virginia  could  have  no  important  bear- 
ing upon  the  war,  because  that  country,  having  neither  water- 
courses nor  railways,  was  inaccessible  to  large  armies ;  but  Mc- 
Clellan's  successes  had  a  great  moral  effect ;  they  stimulated  the 
ardor  of  the  North,  while  contributing  at  the  same  time  to  create 
certain  illusions  in  regard  to  the  speedy  termination  of  the  war. 

During  this  short  campaign,  Patterson,  whom  we  have  left  in 
Maryland  in  front  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  had  resumed  the 
offensive,  in  pursuance  of  instructions  from  Scott,  and  had  thus 
detained  the  forces  which  the  Confederates  might  have  detached 
from  Johnston's  corps  stationed  at  Winchester,  to  send  them  to 
Garnett's  assistance. 

The  best  portion  of  his  small  army,  as  we  have  already  stated, 
having  been  ordered  to  Washington  towards  the  middle  of  June, 
he  was  compelled  to  evacuate  Harj)er's  Ferry  and  recross  the  Poto- 
mac. But  he  was  speedily  rejoined  by  several  newly-formed 
regiments,  with  the  promise  of  additional  reinforcements,  which 
would  increase  his  army  to  a  total  of  20,000  men.  Al- 
though these  troops  were  badly  organized,  poorly  disciplined, 
and  entirely  inexperienced,  their  numerical  superiority  over  the 
forces  opposed  to  them  enabled  Patterson  to  retake  possession 
of  the  important  line  of  railway  he  had  abandoned  a  short  time 
before,  together  with  the  positions  of  Harper's  Ferry  and  Mar- 
tinsburg.  On  the  2d  of  July  he  forded  the  Potomac  at  Wil- 
liamsport,  and,  eight  kilometres  beyond  that  point,  on  the  borders 
of  the  stream  of  Falling  Waters,  his  advance-guard  met  a  brigade 
of  the  enemy's  infantry  commanded  by  General  Jackson,  who  was 
subsequently  to  acquire  such  great  celebrity,  and  the  cavalry  of 
Stuart,  a  friend  of  the  latter,  doomed  to  perish  like  him,  while 
leaving  a  reputation  almost  equal  to  his  own. 

The  first  feats  of  arms  of  these  two  illustrious  officers  in  behalf 
of  the  cause  they  had  just  espoused  were  not  fortunate. 

Vol.  L— 15 


226  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Cut  up  by  the  Federal  artillery,  which  was  better  served  than 
their  own,  they  were  obliged,  on  the  arrival  of  Abercrombie's 
brigade,  to  beat  a  speedy  retreat,  only  stopping  at  Bunker's  Hill, 
between  Marti nsburg  and  Winchester,  where  they  found  rein- 
forcements forwarded  in  haste  by  Johnston.  Patterson,  on  his 
part,  was  satisfied  with  this  advantage,  and  did  not  advance  be- 
yond Martinsburg.  His  forces,  unprovided  with  means  of  trans- 
portation, were  in  no  condition  to  continue  the  campaign.  Some 
of  his  artillerymen  openly  declared  it  was  their  intention  to  leave 
him  at  the  end  of  their  term  of  service,  which  was  about  to  ex- 
pire in  a  few  days.  At  length,  on  the  14th,  having  been  apprised 
by  Scott  of  McDowell's  intended  movement,  he  advanced,  at  the 
head  of  about  14,000  men,  on  Bunker's  Hill  and  Charlestown. 
Not  venturing  to  attack  Johnston,  who  was  intrenched  at  Win- 
chester with  forces  outnumbering  his  own,  he  hoped  at  least  to  oc- 
cupy the  latter's  attention,  and  so  prevent  him  from  joining  Beau- 
regard. In  this  he  succeeded  for  a  few  days,  until  the  18th,  which 
was  the  date  fixed  by  Scott  for  the  attack  on  Manassas ;  and,  as 
the  sequel  will  show,  if  that  attack  had  not  been  postponed,  the 
Southern  generals  would  not  have  been  able  to  effect  their  junction. 

The  combats  we  have  hitherto  described  w^ere  evidently  the 
mere  preludes  to  those  more  serious  conflicts  which  public  opinion 
at  the  North  w^as  impatient  to  see  commence.  It  had  been  ex- 
asperated at  first  by  the  check  experienced  at  Big  Bethel;  then 
McClellan's  campaign  supervened  to  inspire  it  with  overweening 
confidence ;  it  believed  that  a  single  victory  would  suffice  to  bring 
back  the  repentant  South  into  the  bosom  of  the  Union.  This  de- 
lusion regarding  the  possible  duration  of  the  war  was  shared, 
moreover,  by  the  Confederates  themselves,  and  the  volunteers  who 
were  rushing  from  every  quarter  of  the  South  to  rally  around  the 
standard  of  Beauregard  entertained  no  doubt  but  that  one  great 
eiFort  would  suffice  to  open  to  them  the  gates  of  Washington  and 
secure  the  recognition  of  their  new  republic;  they  little  foresaw 
the  harassing  campaigns  that  w^ere  in  store  for  them,  or  the  de- 
feats that  brought  ruin  to  their  cause,  and  which  very  few  among 
them  lived  to  witness. 

The  small  armies  of  Butler,  McClellan,  and  Patterson  having 
already  fought  the  enemy,  the  North  could  not  understand  the 


BULL  RUX.  227 

inactivity  of  the  much  larger  forces  assembled  at  Washington  un- 
der the  command  of  McDowell.  No  one  suspected  then  that,  at 
no  distant  day,  it  would  require  200,000  combatants  to  ensure  the 
safety  of  the  capital ;  and  yet,  in  the  estimation  of  some  people, 
35,000  men  seemed  already  to  constitute  a  considerable  army. 
Confidence,  which,  when  pushed  to  excess,  does  not  allow  the  dif- 
ficulties of  an  undertaking  to  be  duly  weighed,  had  contributed 
to  the  rapid  formation  of  this  army,  and  stimulated  the  ardor 
with  which  the  North  called  her  military  forces  into  existence. 
This  extreme  confidence  was  certainly  the  cause  of  more  than  one 
reverse  and  many  illusions  to  the  American  nation,  and  if  it  had 
not  rested  upon  manly  virtues,  it  would  have  been  both  ridiculous 
and  fatal;  but,  sustained  as  it  was  in  America  by  indomitable 
will  and  perseverance,  it  commands  respect,  for  it  creates  great 
nations. 

The  troops  gathered  in  haste  around  Washington  were  com- 
posed of  most  heterogeneous  elements ;  they  were  volunteers  some 
3f  whom  had  already  been  for  two  mouths  and  a  half  under  drill 
with  only  fifteen  days  longer  to  serve;  others  who  were  enlisted 
for  three  years,  but  utterly  ignorant  of  their  trade;  there  were 
one  battalion  and  three  batteries  belonging  to  the  regular  army,  a 
certain  number  of  batteries  attached  to  volunteer  regiments,  with 
only  a  few  squadrons  of  cavalry,  mostly  regulars.  The  five 
small  divisions  into  which  these  troops  had  been  apportioned  were 
scarcely  formed,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  Generals  Tyler 
and  Runyon  and  Colonels  Hunter,  Heintzelman,  and  Miles,  who 
had  been  placed  in  command  of  them;  the  administrative  de- 
partments were  being  slowly  organized,  the  chiefs  having  had 
no  time  to  become  acquainted  with  their  subordinates;  the 
stafP,  which  was  the  more  necessary  because  no  reliance  could  be 
placed  upon  the  personal  experience  of  regimental  officers,  was 
scarcely  *n  existence.  The  regular  officers,  who  filled  the  most 
important  positions,  could  not  attend  to  all  the  details  of  the  ser- 
vice nor  correct  the  ignorance  of  an  entire  army.  They  fully 
understood,  therefore,  how  little  that  army  was  able  to  undertake 
an  offensive  campaign,  and  no  one  felt  this  more  keenly  than  Mc- 
Dowell himself,  upon  whom  the  responsibility  of  such  an  under- 
taking was  about  to  rest.     But  public  opinion  was  an  inexorable 


228  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

master  who  commanded  him  to  march  on  to  Richmond,  and  he 
had  to  obey. 

Neither  the  good  sense  nor  the  experience  of  General  Sc«)tt  had 
any  power  to  resist  the  impetuous  current.  The  government  of 
the  White  House,  beset  by  impatient  members  of  Congress,  feared 
lest  further  temporizing  should  chill  the  military  ardor  of  the 
North,  and  preferred  the  chances  of  a  disaster  to  the  political 
difficulties  that  inaction  created.  When  McDowell  alleged  the 
greenness  of  his  troops,  as  they  say  in  English,  the  reply  was, 
"You  are  green,  undoubtedly,  but  the  enemies  are  green  also, — 
you  are  all  green."*  And  when  he  assembled  his  troops  for  the 
purpose  of  manoeuvring  them,  cries  rose  on  every  side  against  the 
general  whom  they  accused  of  seeking  to  pave  the  way  for  a  dicta- 
torship. Unable  to  persuade  his  superiors  that  with  troops  in- 
capable of  regular  marches,  and  without  sufficient  means  of  trans- 
portation, all  the  advantage  would  be  on  the  side  of  the  party  that 
could  wait  for  his  adversary  in  a  defensive  position,  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  execute  the  orders  given  him  with  as  much  zeal  as  if 
he  had  counted  on  success. 

No  one  was  better  able  to  render  that  success  possible  than 
himself,  in  spite  of  so  many  disadvantages.  Partly  educated  in 
France  and  perfectly  acquainted  with  our  literature,  he  had 
thoroughly  studied  the  military  profession,  and,  since  the  Mexican 
campaign,  had  shown  excellent  administrative  talents  on  General 
Scott's  staff.  Possessed  of  indefatigable  energy,  his  creative  mind 
made  up,  to  a  certain  extent,  for  the  inefficiency  of  the  instruments 
he  had  to  handle,  and  the  plan  he  had  formed  for  attacking  the 
Confederates  at  Bull  Run  shows,  despite  the  results  of  that  disas- 
trous campaign,  the  correctness  of  his  military  eoup-d'oeil. 

A  few  words  are  necessary  in  this  place  to  describe  the  ground 
upon  which  the  first  pitched  battle  of  the  war  was  fought. 

The  parallel  ridges  of  the  Alleghanies,  which  extend  from 
south-west  to  north-east,  crossing  the  whole  of  Virginia  and  Mary- 
land, are  divided  by  two  deep  gaps,  through  which  the  waters 
from  the  mountains  force  a  j)assage,  forming  two  rivers,  both 
of  which  empty  into  the  large  bay  of  the  Chesapeake;  north- 
ward, the  Potomac  waters  the  gorges  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
*  Beport  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  vol.  ii.  p.  38. 


BULL  RUN.  229 

in  Tvhich  we  shall  see  more  than  one  combat  take  place,  and 
thence  runs  down  to  Washington ;  the  James  River,  winding 
round  the  high  mountains  called  Beaver  Peaks,  crosses  Appomat- 
tox county,  where  Lee  will  capitulate,  and  after  passing  Richmond, 
falls  into  the  Chesapeake,  near  Fortress  Monroe.  The  Valley  of 
Virginia,  already  frequently  mentioned,  an  open  and  well-culti- 
vated country,  between  two  parallel  chains  of  the  Alleghanies, 
extends  from  the  vicinity  of  the  James  to  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac.  The  eastern  barrier  of  this  valley,  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Blue  Ridge,  is  intersected  by  deep  defiles  called  gaps,  situ- 
ated at  about  equal  distances  from  each  other,  and  all  traversed 
by  good  roads. 

The  country  extending  eastward,  between  the  Blue  Ridge  and 
the  Chesapeake,  is  undulating,  covered  with  old  forests  or  young 
pine  trees,  the  only  produce  that  a  soil,  exhausted  by  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  tobacco-plant,  is  now  able  to  bring  forth ;  the  popu- 
lation is  thinly  scattered ;  the  soil,  clayey  and  impermeable,  is 
easily  converted  by  the  action  of  vehicles  into  mud,  both  soft  and 
sticky,  which  was  to  be  one  of  the  most  formidable  enemies  to  the 
armies  having  to  campaign  in  Virginia ;  a  multitude  of  water- 
courses wind  among  the  wooded  ravines,  between  hillocks,  the 
highest  of  which  have  been  for  the  most  part  cleared;  all  these 
water-courses  finally  form  two  rivers,  the  Rappahannock  and  the 
York,  which  run  in  a  parallel  course  towards  the  Potomac,  and, 
like  the  latter,  fall  into  Chesapeake  Bay. 

The  nature  of  the  ground,  the  absence  of  turnpikes,  the  small 
quantity  of  arable  lands,  and  the  very  direction  of  the  waters — 
everything,  in  short,  renders  an  offensive  campaign  especially 
difficult  in  that  country.  There  are  very  few  railways.  Two 
lines  run  from  the  shores  of  the  Potomac  to  Richmond.  One, 
starting  from  Aquia  Creek,  halfway  between  Washington  and 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  runs  direct  to  the  capital  of  Virginia, 
after  crossing  the  Rappahannock  at  Fredericksburg.  The  other 
leaves  Alexandria,  opposite  Washington,  and  running  south- 
westerly reaches  Gordonsville,  where  it  forks.  One  branch,  fol- 
lowing the  same  direction  along  the  foot  of  the  Blue  Ridge, 
connects  with  the  great  Tennessee  line  at  Lynchburg  by  way 
of  Charlottesville ;  the  other  branch,  bending  to  the  east  and  run- 


230  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ning  parallel  with  the  tributaries  of  York  River,  strike?  the  first 
line  again  near  one  of  these  tributaries,  and  without  merging  into 
it,  never  leaves  it  until  Richmond  is  reached.  Two  branches  of 
the  Alexandria  and  Lynchburg  line  switch  off  to  enter  the  Vallev 
of  Virginia;  one  at  Charlottesville,  which  debouches  at  kStauaton, 
near  the  sources  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  breaks  off  a  little  beyond 
that  point ;  the  other,  much  more  to  the  north,  at  about  forty-five 
kilometres  from  Alexandria,  which  ascends  the  valley  after  crossing 
the  Blue  Ridge  at  Manassas  Gap.  Hence  the  name  of  Manassas 
Junction,  which  is  applied  to  the  little  plateau  where  this  junction 
occurs  near  the  stream  of  Bull  Run. 

This  plateau  of  Manassas  had  been  selected  as  the  concsntra- 
ting  point  of  the  Confederate  troops  that  were  to  cover  Virginia 
and  menace  Washington.  The  importance  of  railways  and  their 
various  points  of  intersection  was  thus  being  made  manifest  even 
before  the  armies  had  taken  the  field.  At  Manassas  Junction, 
Beauregard  had  two  lines  of  railway  behind  him,  which  brought 
him  supplies  and  secured  him  tAvo  means  of  retreat  in  case  of 
necessity,  while  the  Manassas  Gap  Junction  enabled  him  to  estab- 
lish rapid  communications  with  Johnston  and  the  troops  stationed 
at  Winchester  in  front  of  Patterson's  army. 

The  stream  called  Bull  Run  covered  the  positions  occupied  by 
Beauregard  on  the  plateau  of  Manassas.  This  plateau  slopes 
gently  down  to  the  north-west,  in  a  direction  contrary  to  the 
course  of  Bull  Run,  so  that  this  little  river  becomes  gradually  more 
deeply  embanked  in  the  ravine  which  borders  the  plateau  to  the 
north-west.  In  this  lower  part  of  its  course  we  find,  first,  the  rail- 
way bridge  at  Gordon  Mills,  and  above  only  two  fords — Mitchell's 
Ford  and  Blackburn's  Ford,  both  difficult  of  access.  Higher  up, 
the  declivities  are  less  abrupt,  the  fords  become  more  numerous, 
and  the  main  road  from  Alexandria  to  Warrenton  crosses  the  river 
over  a  stone  bridge.  Beyond  this  bridge,  ascending  the  course  of 
Bull  Run,  the  country  is  flat,  intersected  with  woods  and  small 
clearings ;  and  in  the  vicinity  of  Sudeley  Springs,  this  stream, 
fordable  at  every  point,  is  no  longer  a  serious  obstacle. 

The  stone  bridge  is  situated  at  a  distance  of  eight  kilometres 
from  Manassas  Junction;  the  space  between  those  two  points 
is  rather  open,  and  the  waters  that  flow  through  it  are  not  very 


BULL  RUN.  231 

deep.  The  course  of  Bull  Eun,  on  the  contrary,  lies  between 
thickly  wooded  banks,  while  the  slopes  which  terminate  the 
Manassas  plateau  on  that  side  are  more  and  more  precipitous. 
This  plateau  is  bounded  on  the  north-west  by  a  small  stream, 
Young's  Branch;  beyond  it  stretch  the  flat  lands  of  Sudeley 
Springs,  and  along  this  latter  stream  the  main  road  follows  a 
line  as  straight  as  a  Roman  causeway.  On  the  opposite  side  of 
Bull  Run,  and  almost  to  the  north  of  Manassas,  the  ground  rises 
in  the  shape  of  a  circular  mound,  upon  which  stands  the  little 
village  of  Centreville,  surrounded  by  cultivated  fields  and  trav- 
ersed by  the  high  road ;  this  j)lace  is  seven  kilometres  from  the 
stone  bridge. 

Such  was  the  ground  on  which  the  first  army  organized  by  the 
Confederates  had  been  posted;  its  camps  occupied  the  Manassas 
plateau,  where  it  had  open  spaces  for  drilling,  and  where  it 
was  covered  by  line  of  Bull  Run.  A  few  earthworks  sur- 
rounded the  railway  station,  and  a  portion  of  its  artilleiy  was 
in  position  at  the  various  fords  of  Bull  Run,  forming  batteries 
skilfully  masked  by  the  foliage.  A  detachment  of  considerable 
size  was  stationed  at  Centreville,  another  farther  on  at  Fairfax 
Court-house,  and  Beauregard's  cavalry  pushed  their  pickets 
to  within  sight  of  Washington.  It  was  in  these  positions  that 
McDowell  was  to  seek  his  adversary.  The  railway  which  starts 
from  Alexandria,  and  on  the  line  of  which  lies  Manassas  Junc- 
tion, offered  him  little  resource,  for  it  passes  through  wooded 
ravines,  far  from  any  road,  and  is  intersected  by  numerous 
wooden  bridges  that  a  retreating  enemy  could  easily  destroy. 
In  order  to  follow  this  direction,  therefore,  there  only  remained 
to  him,  besides  cross-roads,  the  turnpike  from  Alexandria  to 
"VYarrenton,  which,  running  from  east  to  west,  passes  through 
the  villages  of  Annandale  and  Fairfax  Court-house  before  it 
reaches  Centreville.  It  became  necessary,  therefore,  to  move  the 
greatest  portion  of  the  army  with  its  baggage  on  a  single  route, 
leaving  the  remainder  to  follow  by  diverging  lines,  so  as  to 
reduce  the  amount  of  incumbrances — a  double  difficulty  added 
to  those  we  have  already  mentioned. 

On  the  9th  of  July,  McDowell  was  ordered  to  make  prepara- 
tions for  assuming  the  oiFensive  in  eight  days,  and  at  the  same 


232  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

time  G(3neial  Scott  gave  him  formal  assurance  that  Patterson 
shouki  keep  Johnston  so  occupied  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  that 
he  would  find  it  impossible  to  go  to  the  assistance  of  Beauregard  ; 
that  if  he  attempted  to  do  so,  the  forces  opposed  to  him  would 
follow  so  close  that  they  would  reach  the  banks  of  Bull  Run  at 
the  same  time. 

On  the  16th,  the  day  fixed  for  the  movement,  there  was  nothing 
ready  to  transport  the  necessary  provisions  for  the  army.  McDowell 
was  nevertheless  obliged  to  begin  his  march.  He  had  four  divis- 
ions with  him — the  fifth,  Runyon's,  remaining  behind  to  protect 
the  positions  that  the  army  was  about  to  leave.  Tyler's  division, 
four  brigades  strong,  was  ordered  to  incline  to  the  right  by  the 
Leesburg  road,  and  encamp  at  Vienna,  in  order  to  fall  back,  by 
a  cross-movement,  on  Fairfax  Court-house  the  following  day; 
Miles's  division  was  to  follow  the  turnpike  as  far  as  Annandale, 
then  to  turn  to  the  left  into  an  old  road  called  Braddock  Road, 
because  it  had  been  constructed,  as  was  said,  by  the  British  general 
Braddock.  Hunter  followed  Miles,  Annandale  being  designated 
as  his  first  halting-place.  Heintzelman,  with  the  strongest  divis- 
ion, was  directed  to  proceed  by  certain  cross-roads  which,  passing 
south  of  the  line  of  railway,  led  to  the  bank  of  a  stream  called 
Pohick  Creek.  The  soldiers  carried  three  days'  rations  in  their 
haversacks.  The  supply-trains  were  to  leave  Alexandria  on  the 
following  day,  and  join  the  army  on  the  turnpike  between  Fair- 
fax and  Centreville. 

McDowell's  plan  was  to  surprise  Bonham's  brigade  of  the 
enemy  stationed  at  Fairfax  by  causing  it  to  be  attacked  on  the 
17th  at  the  same  time  by  Miles  in  front  and  by  Hunter  in  flank. 
He  intended  afterwards  to  make  a  demonstration  by  way  of  Cen- 
treville, and  lead  the  bulk  of  his  forces  with  Heintzelmp-n  along 
the  course  of  Bull  Run,  below  Union  Mills,  to  pass  the  river  at 
a  dash  and  turn  Beauregard's  position  by  the  right. 

The  troops  started  at  the  appointed  time,  but  the  heat  was  ex- 
treme; covered  with  dust,  little  accustomed  to  march  and  to 
carry  knapsack  and  musket,  too  poorly  disciplined  to  remain  in 
the  ranks  when  they  felt  fatigued  or  came  upon  some  fresh 
spring  of  water,  the  soldiers  soon  spread  themselves  upon  the 
roads  in  long  columns,  in  which  the  regiments  were  confounded, 


BULL  RUN.  233 

and  Avhicli  were  followed  without  order  by  rapidly  increasing 
groups  of  stragglers.  Most  of  them  only  reached  the  encamp- 
ments which  had  been  designated  for  them  in  the  middle  of  the 
night;  others  stopped  on  the  road,  and  only  the  heads  of  columns 
were  able  to  resume  their  march  on  the  morning  of  the  17th. 
The  remainder,  already  prostrated  by  fatigue,  slowly  followed 

in  their  tracks.     Bonham's  briijade  was  thus  allowed  time  to  fall 

.  .  .  .    I 

back  quietly  by  way  of  Centreville,  and  to  take  position  at  Mit- 
chell's Ford,  on  the  line  of  Bull  Run,  where  Beauregard  was  post~ 
ing  his  troops.  On  the  evening  of  the  17th  three  divisions  of  the 
Federal  army  were  in  the  neighborhood  of  Fairfax,  while  Heintzel- 
man,  with  the  fourth,  occupied  Sangster's  Station  on  the  railway. 

They  had  marched  about  twenty-four  kilometres  in  two  days; 
but  this  march,  too  severe  for  a  beginning,  had  proved  very  ex- 
haasting;  the  soldiers,  improvident  in  their  inexperience,  had 
wasted  the  rations  they  carried ;  the  supply-trains  had  not  come 
up,  and  most  of  them  lay  down  that  night  under  the  leafy  cover 
of  the  forest  without  even  a  biscuit  to  eat. 

The  provisions,  which  only  left  Alexandria  when  they  should 
already  have  arrived  at  Fairfax,  required  time  to  reach  the 
army.  Having  ordered  Tyler  simply  to  occupy  Centreville, 
which  was  only  eight  kilometers  distant  from  the  point  where 
he  had  passed  the  night,  McDowell  proceeded  to  his  left  to  pre- 
pare for  the  movement  he  had  planned  by  way  of  Union  Mills. 
On  that  side,  while  his  troops  were  rallying,  resting,  and 
still  waiting  for  supplies,  Heintzelman  was  reconnoitring  the 
course  of  Bull  Run  and  trying  to  find  a  passage  suitable  for 
the  attack.  But  none  was  found  ;  the  approaches  to  the  river 
were  almost  everywhere  impracticable ;  and,  giving  up  his  project, 
McDowell  determined  to  try  the  enemy  in  another  direction. 

But  the  impatience  and  unreflecting  confidence  of  a  few  chiefs, 
which  w^ere  as  much  the  natural  result  of  inexperience  as  the 
slowness  and  disorder  of  the  march  on  the  part  of  the  soldiers, 
were  to  compromise  the  success  of  the  campaign  from  the  outset. 
Having  found  Centreville  evacuated,  Tyler  thought,  no  doubt, 
that  the  whole  expedition  would  amount  to  nothing  more  than 
a  mere  military  promenade,  and  was  anxious  to  secure  for  him- 
self, in  the  eyes  of  the  public,  the  cheap  merit  of  having  been 


234  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  first  to  occupy  the  positions  of  Manassas.  Having  arrived  at 
Centreville  on  the  morning  of  the  18th,  he  proceeded  with 
Richardson's  brigade,  a  part  of  Sherman's,  and  a  battery  of 
artillery  towards  Blackburn's  Ford,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to 
cross  Bull  Run  with  these  forces. 

Beauregard  was  waiting  for  him  there  with  a  large  portion  of  his 
army,  and  everything  was  ready  for  a  vigorous  defence  of  the 
line  of  that  river  against  the  Federal  attacks.  Seven  brigades 
were  in  position :  Ewell  at  Union  Mills,  Jones  a  little  higher 
up,  Longstreet  at  Blackburn's  Ford,  Bonham  at  Mitchell's  Ford, 
Cocke  between  that  point  and  the  stone  bridge,  and  Evans  near 
this  bridge,  while  Early  remained  in  reserve  in  rear  of  Jones 
and  Longstreet;  some  few  troops  with  artillery  were  posted 
on  the  left  bank  of  Bull  Run  in  advance  of  Mitchell's  Ford. 
It  was  with  the  latter  troops  that  the  engagement  commenced ; 
but  as  they  soon  recrossed  the  river,  Tyler  merely  tried  to  engage 
Bonham's  attention  by  the  fire  of  a  few  guns,  and  leaving 
Sherman  in  reserve,  he  proceeded  with  Richardson's  four  regi- 
ments in  the  direction  of  Blackburn's  Ford.  Longstreet  held 
the  skirts  of  a  wood  extending  along  the  right  bank  of  Bull 
Run;  his  sharpshooters  were  posted  at  the  water's  edge,  his 
artillery  was  a  little  in  the  rear,  and,  as  we  have  said,  masked 
by  trees.  The  left  bank  was  higher  than  the  other,  and 
formed  a  crest  terminating  in  a  precipitous  slope.  The  Confeder- 
ates allowed  their  opponents  to  advance  without  molestation  as  far 
as  the  ridge,  and  when  the  12th  New  York  appeared  among  the 
thinly  scattered  trees  which  crowned  the  summit,  it  was  received 
by  a  murderous  fire  of  musketry  and  artillery.  Staggered  by  this 
unexpected  resistance,  it  was  almost  immediately  thrown  into  con- 
fusion by  a  few  sharpshooters  of  the  enemy  who  crossed  the 
water  and  took  them  in  flank ;  the  soldiers,  becoming  bewildered 
and  thinking  they  were  pursued,  ran  for  more  than  half  a  league, 
firing  in  the  air  or  upon  each  other.  Richardson  soon  came  into 
line  with  his  other  three  regiments,  but,  at  the  same  time.  Early 
came  to  the  assistance  of  Longstreet,  thus  giving  the  Confeder- 
ates a  great  numerical  superiority,  and  the  combat  was  renewed 
with  spirit.  The  Confederate  batteries  did  great  damage  to  the  Fed- 
erals, and  the  latter,  after  having  manned  the  ridge,  did  not  ven- 


BULL  RU^.  235 

lure  near  the  edge  of  the  river.  Tyler,  having  no  desire  to  continue 
the  engagement,  A^hich  only  exposed  his  troops  unnecessarily,  and 
being  convinced  of  the  error  he  had  committed,  brought  them  back 
in  good  order  to  Sherman's  line,  and  the  two  brigades  regained  the 
neighborhood  of  Centreville  in  the  evening. 

The  losses  on  each  side  only  amounted  to  one  hundred  or  one 
hundred  and  twenty  men ;  but  this  encounter,  which  would  have 
been  a  trifling  affair  in  the  midst  of  a  regular  campaign,  was  an 
unfortunate  beginning  for  new  troops;  the  sudden  unmasking 
of  batteries  by  the  enemy,  the  unexpected  firing  of  musketry  in 
the  woods,  had  produced  a  powerful  impression  upon  them ;  the 
demoralization  of  the  12th  New  York  was  unfortunately  a  far 
more  contagious  example  than  the  good  behavior  of  the  three  other 
regiments.  The  mwale  of  the  army  was  deeply  affected  by  it.  This 
first  encounter  naturally  stimulated  the  ardor  of  the  Confederates, 
and  a  timely  reinforcement  increased  their  confidence  still  further. 
As  early  as  the  17th,  recognizing  the  importance  of  the  movement 
that  was  being  prepared  against  him,  Beauregard  had  applied  to 
Johnston  for  assistance.  The  latter  started  on  the  following  day,  and 
taking  advantage  of  the  neglect  of  Patterson,  who  had  remained 
inactive  at  Martinsburg,  he  left  Winchester  quietly,  and  led  his 
8000  men  by  rajiid  marches  to  near  Manassas  Gap.  As  fast  as  they 
arrived  there,  he  placed  them  on  the  cars,  which  landed  them  almost 
in  the  centre  of  the  battle-field,  where  we  shall  soon  see  them  make 
their  appearance  before  an  enemy  -who  did  not  even  suspect  their 
departure.  Beauregard  had  21,833  men  and  29  pieces  of  artillery : 
thus,  including  a  few  troops  which  had  been  forwarded  in  liaste  from 
Richnn)nd,  and  which  were  expected  to  arrive  during  the  night,  the 
army  of  the  Shenandoah  augmented  his  numbers  to  30,000  men. 

McDowell,  on  tiie  contrary,  who  liad  taken  tiie  field  with  30,000 
soldiers,  had  already  seen  their  number  reduced  by  the  departure 
of  one  regiment  and  a  battery  of  artillery,  whose  term  of  service 
had  expired,  and  who  shamefully  left  him  at  Centreville.  On  the 
19tli  he  found  himself  in  the  vicinity  of  this  village  with  28,000 
men  at  the  utmost;  and  although  only  ten  leagues  from  Wash- 
ington, he  was  in  a  strange  country  without  maps  or  reliable 
guides  to  shape  his  course;  before  he  could  form  his  new  plan  of 
attack,  he  was  obliged  to  spend  two  entire  days  in  having  the 


236  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ground  studied  by  his  topographical  officers.  These  two  days, 
which  were  moreover  required  to  complete  the  organization  of  his 
array,  gave  the  enemy  time  to  concentrate  his  forces.  Finally, 
the  arrival,  on  the  20th,  of  the  supply-trains  so  long  expected 
allowed  the  issue  of  three  days'  rations,  and  the  Federal  army  got 
in  readiness  for  the  movement  it  was  about  to  undertake. 

The  right  and  centre  of  the  Confederates  being  covered  by  for- 
midable obstacles,  McDowell  determined  to  turn  their  extreme  left, 
where  Bull  Run,  fordable  and  badly  guarded,  no  longer  afforded 
them  sufficient  protection  ;  and  on  the  evening  of  the  20th  he 
ordered  an  attack  to  be  made  the  next  mornino;.  Miles  remained 
at  Centreville  in  order  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  enemy  towards 
Blackburn's  Ford ;  Tyler  was  ordered  to  advance  along  the  high 
road  as  far  as  the  stone  bridge,  and  to  force  a  passage  as  soon  as 
the  left  of  its  defenders  had  been  turned.  The  flank  attack  was 
entrusted  to  Hunter's  and  Heintzelman's  divisions,  forming  a 
corps  of  12,000  men,  and  the  Sudeley  fords,  situated  above  the 
stone  bridge  in  the  centre  of  a  M^ood  extending  along  both  sides 
of  Bull  Run,  were  designated  as  the  points  at  which  to  cross. 

In  the  mean  time,  Johnston's  troops,  numbering  8334  men, 
re-divided  into  five  small  brigades,  had  made  a  forced  march; 
the  infantry,  passing  the  Blue  Ridge  at  Ashby's  Gap,  had  taken 
the  cars  a  little  to  the  east  of  Manassas  Gap;  the  artillery  and 
cavalry  had  continued  their  march  along  the  main  road.  A  por- 
tion of  these  forces,  about  3000  men,  had  reached  the  Manassas 
plateau  on  the  evening  of  the  20th ;  the  remainder  were  to  arrive 
on  the  morning  of  the  21st.  Johnston  himself  had  gone  in  ad- 
vance of  his  array  corps  to  consult  with  Beauregard  in  regard  to 
their  moveraents ;  and  although  he  was  Beauregard's  senior  in 
rank,  he  left  him  at  full  liberty  to  make  the  necessary  preparations 
for  the  battle.  The  forces  assembled  at  Manassas,  before  his 
arrival,  were  designated  by  the  name  of  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
and  consisted  of  eight  brigades  of  infantry,  which  were  not  formed 
into  divisions.  Six  of  them  had  occupied  the  line  of  Bull  Run, 
since  the  17th,  in  the  positions  we  have  indicated;  the  other  two, 
those  of  Holmes  and  Ewell,  were  held  in  reserve.  It  was  agreed 
that  Johnston's  troops  should  come  to  reinforce  the  former  in  these 
positions,  and  that  all  the  brigades  of  the  two  armies  should  be 


BULL  RUN.  237 

united  two  by  two  into  temporary  divisions.  Johnston's  army, 
as  we  have  stated,  gave  the  Confederate  generals  a  numerical  force 
at  least  equal  to  that  of  their  opponents,  but  they  might  fear  lest 
Patterson  should  in  turn  come  to  reinforce  the  latter. 

The  inaction  of  McDowell  for  the  last  two  days  seemed  to 
justify  this  apprehension.  The  impression  was  that,  having  been 
informed  of  Johnston's  movements,  he  had  halted  to  wait  in  his 
turn  for  reinforcements  from  the  upper  Potomac,  which  would 
have  restored  to  him  the  advantage  in  point  of  numbers.  It 
was  important  to  forestall  him,  and  Beauregard  determined  to 
assume  the  offensive  and  proceed  to  attack  him  at  Centreville. 
While  McDowell  was  issuing  orders  for  putting  his  troops  in 
motion  on  the  21st,  the  Confederate  army  was  preparing  to  cross 
Bull  Pun  on  the  same  day,  and  by  an  inverse  movement  to  attack 
the  extreme  left  of  the  Federals.  This  plan  was  perhaps  a  rash 
one,  for  if  the  latter  had  remained  stationary,  confining  their 
operations  to  a  defence  of  the  positions  they  occupied,  we  may 
believe  that  the  battle  would  have  resulted  to  their  advantage. 
McDowell,  it  is  true,  relying  upon  the  assurances  he  had  re- 
ceived, knew  nothing  of  the  arrival  on  the  ground  of  Johnston's 
troops,  and  instead  of  remaining  on  the  defensive  he  was  hasten- 
ing to  operate  on  the  enemy's  left  in  order  to  take  possession  of 
the  line  of  railway  by  which  those  troops  might  be  brought  over. 
But  the  arrangements  made  by  Beauregard  for  an  offensive  move- 
ment gave  the  Federals,  if  they  became  the  assailants,  great 
chances  of  success.  He  had  in  fact  w^cakened  his  left  in  order 
to  concentrate  his  forces  upon  the  opposite  wing,  and  the  tardy 
arrival  of  Johnston's  last  brigades,  which  had  been  delayed  by 
the  bad  condition  of  the  railroad,  rendering  it  impossible  for 
him  to  begin  that  movement  at  an  early  hour,  the  left  of  the 
Confederates,  if  INIcDowell's  orders  had  been  punctually  executed, 
would  have  been  crushed  and  their  entire  position  turned,  before 
the  last  soldiers  from  Winchester  would  have  had  time  to  spring 
out  of  the  cars  that  brought  them  over,  or  the  troops  posted  on 
the  right  could  have  been  able  to  go  to  the  assistance  of  the  other 
extremity  of  the  line.  It  will  be  seen  how  the  chances  of  war, 
which  have  so  much  to  do  in  deciding  the  fate  of  battles,  favored 
Beauregard  and  prevented  the  disaster  which  the  disposition  of 


238  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

his  army  seemed  to  have  drawn  upon  it.  He  had  posted  the 
first  division,  consisting  of  Holmes's  and  Ewell's  brigades,  on  his 
extreme  right  at  Union  Mills;  the  second,  comprising  those  of 
Jones  and  Early,  a  little  above,  at  the  difficult  ford  called 
McLean's  Ford;  the  brigades  of  Jackson,  Bartow,  and  Elzey, 
brought  over  by  Johnston,  were  to  join  those  of  Longstreet, 
Bonham,  and  Cocke,  to  form  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  divis- 
ions ;  Evans's  brigade  remained  alone  at  the  stone  bridge,  which 
it  had  occupied  for  some  days.  The  brigades  of  Bee  and  Wilcox, 
with  Stuart's  cavalry,  the  greatest  portion  of  which  was  only 
expected  to  arrive  during  the  21st,  were  to  be  held  in  reserve. 
The  fourth  and  fifth  divisions,  commanded  by  Johnston  himself, 
were  to  cross  Bull  Run  between  Mitchell's  Ford  and  the  stone 
bridge,  and  masking  their  movements  behind  a  dense  forest, 
were  to  attack  Centreville,  while  the  right,  by  a  flank  movement, 
would  come  to  their  assistance  or  strike  the  enemy  in  the  rear 
on  the  Fairfax  road.  It  will  be  seen  that  Beauregard,  being 
exclusively  preoccupied  with  his  plans  for  offensive  operations, 
had  made  no  arrangements  for  covering  his  left  flank,  which 
was,  however,  the  most  exposed. 

The  Federals  had  commenced  their  march  before  daylight; 
but  Tyler,  although  he  had  an  excellent  road  to  follow,  did  not 
reach  the  stone  bridge  until  half-past  six,  where  he  found  Evans 
in  position  with  12,000  or  13,000  men.  The  exchange  of  a  few 
cannon-shots  across  the  river  announced  the  commencement  of  the 
battle.  This,  however,  was  only  a  demonstration,  its  object  being 
to  conceal  the  flank  movement  of  the  main  column  formed  by 
Hunter's  and  Heintzelman's  forces,  and  intended  for  the  principal 
attack.  After  having  marched  for  some  time  in  the  rear  of  Tyler, 
these  two  generals  struck  into  the  narrow  roads  leading  from  Cen- 
treville to  Sudeley  Ford,  which  being  much  longer  than  they  had 
anticipated,  it  was  half-past  nine  when  Hunter's  division  reached 
the  ford  it  was  to  cross.  Heintzelman  had  been  ordered  to  cross 
the  river  a  little  below,  at  a  point  guarded  by  a  detachment  of 
the  enemy,  as  soon  as  Hunter,  taking  the  latter  in  flank,  should 
have  dislodged  it. 

Precious  time  had  already  been  wasted,  and  McDowell  must 
have   bitterly  regretted    having  yielded  to   the  advice  of  some 


BULL  RUN.  239 

of  his  generals,  who  had  dissuaded  liim  from  beginning  his 
movement  on  the  evening  of  the  previous  day,  as  he  had  origi- 
nally intended. 

In  the  mean  while,  Beauregard  had  no  suspicion  of  what  was 
passing  on  his  extreme  left.  Tyler's  cannon  had  informed  him 
that  the  Federals  were  in  motion,  but,  deceived  by  this  demon- 
stration, he  was  led  to  suppose  that  the  attack  would  be  directed 
upon  the  stone  bridge  and  the  fords  below,  and  he  persisted  in  his 
design  of  menacing  Centreville,  thinking  that  he  should  thus  check 
the  Federals  and  throw  their  columns  into  disorder.  He  there- 
fore sent  only  Cocke's  brigade  to  the  assistance  of  Evans,  recom- 
mending the  latter  to  confine  himself  to  the  task  of  stubbornly 
defending  the  passage  of  the  stone  bridge,  upon  which  he  believed 
the  main  efforts  of  the  Federals  would  be  directed.  McDowell  had 
more  thoroughly  fathomed  the  intentions  of  his  opponent.  Evans's 
artillery  had  not  felt  strong  enough  to  reply  to  Tyler's  heavy 
cannon,  and  his  infantr}'',  concealed  in  the  woods,  only  exchanged 
a  few  musket-shots  with  the  brigades  of  Sherman  and  Schenck 
posted  in  front  of  it  both  above  and  below  the  bridge.  From 
the  feebleness  of  this  resistance  the  Federal  general  became  at 
once  convinced  that  Beauregard  had  weakened  his  left  wing, 
and  understood  that  he  was  preparing  to  make  an  attack  upon 
Centreville  with  his  right.  He  immediately  took  the  necessary 
steps  to  repel  it;  Keyes'  brigade  was  detached  from  Tyler's 
division  and  ordered  to  join  Richardson,  who  was  already  posted 
opposite  Blackburn's  Ford,  and  to  assist  Miles  in  covering  the 
fords  of  Bull  Run  below  the  stone  bridge. 

After  remaining  two  or  three  hours  in  front  of  Tyler,  Evans 
at  last  perceived  that  the  stone  bridge  was  not  the  real  point  of 
attack,  and  the  movement  of  troops  he  had  observed  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  toward  nine  o'clock,  made  him  suspect  the  dan- 
ger that  threatened  his  flank.  A  good  road  leads  from  Sudeley 
Ford  to  the  Warrenton  turnpike ;  the  point  at  which  the  former 
connects  with  the  latter  is  2500  metres  from  the  ford,  and  2000 
from  the  stone  bridge.  By  reason  of  a  deflection  in  Bull  Run 
to  the  southward,  in  the  direction  of  Sudeley,  it  hardly  required 
more  time  for  the  Federals  to  reach  the  turnpike,  in  the  rear  of 
Evans,  than  it  took  the  latter  to  reach  it  and  to  dispute  its  pos- 


240  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

session.  He  had  therefore  not  a  moment  to  lose ;  he  adopted  his 
course  with  decision  and  acted  promptly.  Leaving  onlj^  four 
companies  near  the  stone  bridge,  he  fell  back,  with  about  one 
thousand  remaining  men,  as  far  as  the  intersection  of  the  turn- 
pike and  the  Sudeley  road,  making  a  change  of  front  to  the 
left,  in  order  to  form  his  line  a  little  in  advance  of  the  road, 
along  the  slopes  of  a  hill  which  is  rounded  at  the  north  by  the 
stream  called  Young's  Branch,  and  rested  his  left  upon  the  Sudeley- 
Springs  road.  By  this  movement  he  succeeded  in  forestalling 
the  Federals.  Hunter's  first  brigade,  commanded  by  Burnside, 
being  fatigued  by  seven  hours'  march,  had  rested  near  the  fresh 
waters  of  Bull  Run.  McDowell,  impatient  at  the  delay  of  this 
brigade,  proceeded  in  advance  of  it,  and  debouched  into  the  fields 
which  extend  beyond  Sudeley  Springs,  where  his  skirmishers  ex- 
changed the  first  shots  with  Evans's  sharp-shooters.  The  latter 
had  found  a  position  on  the  hill  he  occupied  which  compensated 
for  his  numerical  inferiority. 

It  is  nearly  ten  o'clock  Avhen  the  heads  of  Burnside's  column 
appear  on  the  opposite  slopes,  and  they  are  immediately  saluted 
by  a  well-sustained  fire.  In  their  inexperience  they  return  the 
fire  without  taking  time  to  form ;  being  young  troops,  who  had 
never  manoeuvred,  they  do  not  know  how  to  deploy  rapidly  in 
face  of  the  enemy,  so  that  their  first  attack,  which  is  merely  a 
brisk  discharge  of  musketry,  is  not  successful  in  dislodging  Evans. 
The  combat  lasts  nearly  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  during 
which  time  the  other  brigade  of  Hunter's  division,  under  An- 
drew Porter,  hastens  to  get  into  line.  At  last  the  Confederates, 
who,  with  only  1000  men,  are  defending  the  extreme  left  of  their 
army,  which  a  well-concerted  movement  might  have  crushed,  are 
also  about  to  receive  reinforcements.  Beauregard,  still  believing 
that  the  attack  of  the  Federals  was  directed  against  the  stone  bcidge, 
had  sent  the  two  small  brigades  of  Bee  and  Bartow,  numbering 
2800  men,  with  a  field-battery,  to  join  the  defenders  of  that  point, 
while  Jackson  proceeded  to  take  position  upon  Bull  Run,  be- 
tween Cocke  and  Bonham.  But,  warned  by  the  distant  rattling 
of  musketry  and  subsequently  by  Evans  himself,  Bee  and  Bartow 
change  their  direction,  and  arrive  in  time  to  assist  the  latter  just 
when  his  soldiers  are  beginning  to  fall   back  before  Burnside, 


BULL  RUN.  241 

who  was  supported  on  his  left  by  a  battalion  of  regular  troops 
from  Porter's  brigade,  and  on  his  right  by  Griffin's  regular  bat- 
tery of  artillery.  Bee,  forming  his  line  with  admirable  judgment, 
soon  changes  the  aspect  of  the  combat  and  checks  the  Federals, 
who  are  already  attacking  Evans's  positions. 

The  battle  was  at  its  height;  there  were  many  killed  and 
wounded  on  both  sides.  Hunter  was  among  the  first  to  be 
struck  down ;  and  the  loss  of  a  considerable  number  of  superior 
officers,  who  were  obliged  to  expose  themselves  in  order  to  urge 
their  troops  forward,  caused  trouble  and  hesitation  in  the  Federal 
movements.  If  at  this  moment  Tyler  had  shown  some  of  that 
daring  he  had  so  uselessly  displayed  at  Blackburn's  Ford,  he 
might  have  seized  a  fine  opportunity  for  striking  a  blow  at  the 
enemy  which  might  have  proved  decisive. 

In  fact,  some  spectators  who  had  climbed  the  trees  signalled 
to  him  the  movements  of  Hunter  and  the  combat  that  was 
going  on  at  Young's  Branch.  He  had  four  or  five  thousand  men, 
and  there  were  only  two  hundred  riflemen  of  the  enemy  before 
him  to  dispute  the  passage  of  Bull  Run.  The  military  instinct 
of  one  of  his  lieutenants,  who  was  destined  for  a  glorious  career, 
had  discovered  a  ford.  Colonel  Sherman  had  seen  in  the  morning 
a  Confederate  horseman  plunge  into  the  woods  which  skirt  the 
left  bank  of  Bull  Run  above  the  bridge,  and  shortly  after  had 
perceived  him  galloping  across  a  field  on  the  other  side  of  the 
stream.  There  was,  consequently,  a  practicable  ford  at  that  point ; 
but  Tyler,  fearing  that  he  could  not  cross  with  his  artillery,  did 
not  dare  to  venture  to  pass  the  river. 

Richardson's  division  and  a  portion  of  Miles's  occupied  the 
Confederate  troops  posted  in  the  vicinity  of  Blackburn's  Ford, 
while  the  Federal  artillery,  ably  handled  by  Major  Hunt,  kept 
up  a  vigorous  cannonade.  It  was  half-past  ten  in  the  morning. 
The  staif  of  the  Confederate  army,  however,  was  so  poorly 
organized  that  Beauregard,  posted  in  person  in  the  rear  of  his 
long  army  line  along  Bull  Run,  was  not  aware  of  the  attack 
tliat  had  been  made  upon  Evans ;  for  the  slopes  of  the  Manassas 
plateau  concealed  it  from  sight,  and  did  not  allow  him  to  distin- 
guish whence  catne  the  sound  of  cannon  that  he  heard  on  that 
side;  moreover,  the  orders  he  had  sent  to  his  right  wing  had 

Vol.  I.— 16 


242  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

either  not  reached  tlieir  destination  or  been  misconstrued;  he 
had  directed  that  wing  to  cross  the  river  and  attack  Centreville, 
and  Beauregard  was  still  waiting  for  the  moment  when  that 
attack  should  arrest  the  progress  of  McDowell,  whom  he  still 
believed  to  be  on  the  left  bank  of  Bull  Run  ;  the  failure  to  carry- 
out  these  mstractions  proved  the  salvation  of  his  army.  When, 
towards  eleven  o'clock,  he  learned  that  his  right  was  about  to 
move  at  last,  he  issued  a  counter-order,  for  he  had  just  learned 
the  dano-er  which  threatened  him  and  had  become  convinced  that 
instead  of  taking;  the  offensive  he  ouo;ht  to  detach  from  his  ri2;ht 
all  available  troops,  in  order  to  keep  the  victorious  Federals  in 
check.  The  latter,  in  fact,  were  rapidly  gaining  ground  in  spite 
of  the  obstinate  resistance'they  encountered.  Porter  had  deployed 
his  brigade  to  the  left  of  Burnside ;  Heintzelraan,  who,  not  hav- 
ing been  able  to  find  the  ford  indicated  in  his  instructions,  had 
been  obliged  to  cross  Sudeley  Ford  in  the  rear  of  Burnside,  had 
in  his  turn  got  into  line,  while  Tyler  was  pushing  forward  Sher- 
man's brigade.  The  latter  had  crossed  Bull  R,un  at  the  ford  he 
had  discovered  without  striking  a  blow;  leaving  his  artillery 
behind,  he  was  advancing  with  that  precision  and  method  which 
already  denoted  the  true  man  of  war :  as  the  curtain  of  trees  did 
not  permit  him  to  follow  the  battle  Avith  his  eyes,  he  directed  his 
march  by  its  sound ;  Keyes,  who  had  been  recalled  by  Tyler  to 
take  Sherman's  place,  was  in  readiness  to  follow. 

The  Confederates  had  taken  position  on  an  open  height  form- 
ing the  first  tier  of  the  Manassas  plateau,  which  commanded  the 
course  of  Bull  Run,  by  an  elevation  of  from  forty  to  fifty  metres, 
and  was  surrounded  from  north-east  to  west  by  an  elbow  of 
Young's  Branch.  The  chord  of  the  semicircle  described  by  this 
stream  was  the  straight  line  of  the  Warrenton  turnpike,  Avhich 
intersects  it  in  two  places,  and  the  culminating  point  of  which 
was  indicated  by  the  house  of  the  negro  Robinson.  To  the  left, 
those  heights  terminated  above  the  junction  of  the  turnpike  and 
the  Sudeley-Springs  road,  and  then  extended  to  the  south-east- 
ward in  a  line  parallel  with  this  road  towards  Manassas.  These 
slopes,  commanded  by  the  house  of  the  widow  Henry,  mingled  a 
little  farther  on  with  those  of  the  main  plateau,  which  rose  like 
a  second  tier,  separated  from  the  first  counterforts  by  a  slight 


BULL  RUN.  243 

depression  in  the  ground  and  a  thick  coppice.  Two  small  pine 
woods,  one  situated  to  the  right  of  the  Robinson  house,  the  other 
on  the  left,  extending  to  the  other  side  of  Young's  Branch, 
connected  by  numerous  enclosures,  covered  the  position  of  the 
Confederates.  But  the  new^  troops  who  were  about  to  attack  it 
were  sufficiently  numerous  to  surmount  these  obstacles. 

Porter's  troops,  having  taken  the  place  of  Burnside's  soldiers, 
who  had  been  severely  tried,  were  advancing  on  the  right  against 
Evans's  brigade,  and  Hampton's  Legion  which  had  arrived  that 
very  morning  from  Richmond.  It  was  half-past  twelve  o'clock. 
At  the  same  moment  Sherman's  first  regiment,  commanded  by 
Corcoran,  charged  the  left  flank  of  the  enem;)^s  position,  which 
was  defended  on  that  side  by  the  brigades  of  Bee  and  Bartow. 

This  vigorous  attack  threw^  their  ranks  instantly  into  confusion, 
exhausted  as  they  were  by  the  too  unequal  struggle ;  the  whole 
Federal  line  took  advantage  of  this  to  advance  at  once  against 
the  Confederates,  who  gave  w^ay  and  were  driven  out  of  the 
woods  and  beyond  the  river  and  the  road  in  great  disorder.  The 
remnants  of  the  three  brigades  which  had  bravely  sustained  the 
combat  during  three  hours  were  nothing  more  than  a  disorderly 
crowd.  Hampton's  Legion  alone  kept  its  ranks  in  the  midst  of  the 
general  stampede,  but  it  could  not  check  the  advance  of  the  Fed- 
erals, who  w^ere  already  within  reach  of  the  Robinson  house  and 
rapidly  becoming  masters  of  the  position,  the  acclivities  of  which 
they  were  scaling  from  every  side.  The  Confederate  artillery, 
which  had  suffered  greatly,  rallied  near  the  Henry  house,  where 
it  engaged  in  a  combat  with  the  Federal  guns  posted  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Sudeley-Springs  road. 

Fortune  smiled  upon  McDowell.  He  had  turned,  surprised, 
and  routed  the  left  wing  of  his  adversary  before  the  latter 
could  bring  forward  a  sufficient  force  to  check  his  progress 
or  recall  the  troops  concentrated  along  the  line  of  Bull  Run, 
which  were  no  longer  Avanted  in  that  direction.  By  this  move- 
ment he  had  captured  the  defences  of  the  stone  bridge,  while 
Tyler,  clearing  away  the  abatis  which  obstructed  the  road,  was 
about  to  establish  d'rect  communications  between  tliq  Federal 
army  and  Centreville.  McDowell  had  already  18,000  men  en- 
gaged on  the  right  bank  of  Bull  Run ;  in  a  few  hours  he  could 


244  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

be  joined  by  all  the  rest  of  the  available  troops  that  had  remained 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Beauregard,  after  ordering  the  bri- 
gades from  liis  right  to  the  field  of  battle,  proceeded  in  person 
to  the  scene  of  action.  He  met  on  the  road  a  multitude  of 
fugitives,  whose  stories  exaggerated  the  magnitude  of  the  dis- 
aster. The  left  wing  of  the  Confederates  had  lost  all  the  positions 
along  which  it  had  ranged  en  potence;  the  turnpike  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Federals.  It  was  in  vain  that  Beauregard  sent 
Hampton  to  dispute  the  intersection  of  this  turnpike  and  the 
Sudeley  road;  they  quickly  seized  it,  and,  extending  their  lines 
on  the  right,  they  w^ere  already  threatening  the  railway,  the 
control  of  which  would  have  been  of  so  much  importance  to 
them,  while  on  the  left  and  centre  they  appeared  ready  to  pur- 
sue the  routed  Confederates  as  far  as  the  Manassas  plateau. 
Once  established  on  the  crest  of  this  plateau,  they  could  easily 
have  swept  it  with  their  artillery;  and,  meeting  with  no  further 
serious  obstacles  on  that  open  ground,  they  would  have  pre- 
vented a  junction  of  the  brigades  which  Beauregard  had  placed 
in  echelon  in  the  morning  along  the  too  extended  line  of  Bull 
Run. 

At  half-past  ten  o'clock  the  Confederate  general  had  ordered 
the  brigades  of  Holmes  and  Early  and  half  of  Bonham's  to  re- 
inforce Evans's,  while  the  other  troops  posted  along  the  river  were 
to  make  demonstrations  in  order  to  conceal  that  movement. 
But  some  time  was  required  before  these  reinforcements  could 
reach  the  scene  of  conflict.  Fortunately  for  the  Confederates, 
Jackson,  the  man  of  prompt  and  energetic  inspirations,  had  pre- 
viously been  sent  to  fill  a  gap  in  the  line  formed  upon  Bull 
Run,  not  far  from  the  stone  bridge,  with  his  fine  and  large 
brigade  of  2600  Virginians.  While  he  was  making  this  move- 
ment, the  sound  of  cannon  on  his  left  revealed  to  him  the  gravity 
of  the  situation,  and  without  waiting  for  orders  he  changed 
the  direction  of  his  column.  He  arrived  a  little  in  advance 
of  Beauregard,  just  as  the  rout  of  the  Confederates  had  com- 
menced. Seeing  that  he  was  too  late  to  save  the  positions  oc- 
cupied up  to  that  time,  he  deployed  in  the  rear  of  the  Henry 
house,  and  waited  quietly  for  the  fugitives,  who    were   coming 


BULL  RUN.  245 

in  from  every  direction.  Bee,  who  was  struggling  in  vain 
to  stop  the  rout,  exclaimed,  it  is  said,  on  seeing  him,  "Look 
at  Jackson,  as  solid  as  a  stone  wall!"  and  from  that  day  dates 
the  surname  of  Stonewall,  which  Jackson  was  to  render 
immortal. 

The  well-sustained  fire  of  these  fresh  troops  at  once  arrested  the 
pursuit  of  the  Federals,  and  gave  the  Confederate  officers  time  to 
rally  their  soldiers.  Besides,  McDowell's  men  were  tired  out 
by  the  very  eifort  which  had  given  them  the  advantage ;  they  - 
had  been  marching  and  fighting  since  daybreak ;  they  had  seen  a 
large  number  of  their  comrades  fall,  a  certain  amount  of  disorder 
had  crept  into  their  ranks,  and  they  no  longer  possessed  the  dash 
necessary  to  complete  their  success.  At  that  decisive  moment 
they  lost  much  precious  time  in  resting  and  re-forming.  John- 
ston and  Beaureo;ard  took  advantage  of  this,  and  succeeded  in 
restoring  order  among  the  fugitives. 

The  reinforcements  they  had  called  from  the  right  wing  came 
in  slowly,  regiment  by  regiment.  Whilst  Johnston  returned 
to  the  rear  to  hasten  their  march,  Beauregard  posted  them  to 
the  east  beyond  the  Sudeley  and  Manassas  road.  A  portion  of 
Cocke's  and  Bonham's  brigades  and  the  whole  of  Holmes's  thus 
arrived  successively,  and  increased  the  Confederate  forces  concen- 
trated at  that  point  to  a  total  of  about  10,000  men. 

During  this  time  the  Federals,  who  had  remained  on  the  other 
side  of  Bull  Run,  were  trying  to  keep  as  many  of  the  enemy's 
troops  in  front  of  them  as  possible.  Schenck  kept  up  a  brisk 
engagement  with  the  remainder  of  Bonham's  brigade,  and 
for  a  long  time  prevented  Beauregard  from  completely  strip- 
ping that  line  in  order  to  strengthen  his  left.  At  last,  a  little 
before  two  o'clock,  McDowell,  having  succeeded  in  re-forming 
his  line  of  battle,  gave  the  signal  for  a  general  attack,  which  was 
chiefly  directed  against  the  Henry  house.  The  three  brigades  of 
Heintzelman's  division  formed  on  the  extreme  right,  and  those  of 
Porter  and  Sherman,  which  were  nearer  the  centre,  made  a  flank 
movement  by  way  of  the  Sudeley  and  Manassas  road  in  order 
to  fall  upon  Beauregard's  left;  the  cavalry  and  three  batteries  of 
artillery  supported  them.  While  they  were  deploying  on  both 
sides  of  the  road  and  climbing  the  gentle  acclivities  where  an 


246  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

hour  before  Jackson  had  checked  the  pursuit,  Keyes  was  directed 
to  operate  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  heights,  and  take  pos- 
session of  the  Robinson  house,  which  had  been  lying  between  the 
two  parties  without  either  of  them  having  been  able  to  hold  it. 

The  greatest  portion  of  the  Confederate  artillery,  about  fourteen 
or  fifteen  pieces,  had  been  posted  on  the  crest  of  a  hill  situated 
600  metres  in  rear  of  the  Henry  house,  which  terminated  the 
heights  on  that  side,  and  defended  the  approaches  of  the  second 
tier  of  the  plateau,  from  which  it  was  only  separated  by  a  wooded 
hollow.  This  crest  commanded  all  the  surrounding  points,  and 
was  the  position  which  the  Federals  proposed  to  seize.  They 
advanced  as  far  as  the  Henry  house  several  times,  but  only  to  be 
promptly  driven  back.  At  the  outset  of  the  attack,  the  Fire 
Zouaves,  having  scattered  upon  the  extreme  right,  only  escaped 
the  charge  of  Stuart's  cavalry  by  the  timely  and  vigorous  inter- 
vention of  two  squadrons  of  regulars  led  by  Captain  Colburn. 
Heintzelman,  arriving  in  his  turn,  posted  his  batteries  on  the 
extreme  right  so  as  to  enfilade  those  of  the  enemy,  but  he  was 
himself  suddenly  attacked  by  troops  that  had  just  emerged  from 
a  wood  adjoining  the  Sudeley  road,  whom  he  had  permitted  to 
approach,  believing  them  to  be  friends ;  his  soldiers,  thus  taken 
by  surprise,  hesitated  and  fell  back,  leaving  in  the  hands  of  the 
Confederates  three  field-pieces,  the  horses  of  which  had  been  killed. 
Keyes,  on  his  side,  after  taking  possession  of  the  Robinson  house, 
had  been  compelled  to  abandon  it  by  the  heavy  fire  from  a  bat- 
tery of  the  enemy ;  and  was  trying  in  vain  to  advance  upon  the 
summit  of  the  heights  which  extended  from  that  place  to  the  Henry 
house.  It  was  now  about  half-past  two  o'clock;  Beauregard 
had  just  summoned  to  his  assistance  the  greatest  portion  of  the 
troops  that  were  yet  posted  along  the  line  of  Bull  Run — Ewell's 
and  the  remainder  of  Bonham's  brigade — leaving  only  Long- 
street's  and  Jones's  to  defend  the  river  against  Miles  and  half 
of  Tyler's  division,  which  was  still  on  the  other  side.  Having 
received,  at  the  same  time,  reinforcements  of  some  regiments  that 
had  been  several  hours  on  the  march  to  join  him,  he  availed  him- 
self of  their  arrival  to  resume  the  oifensive,  and  the  Confederate 
line,  to  which  Jackson  had  imparted  the  stamina  of  his  excellent 
brigade,  for  a  time  dislodged  the  Federals  from  all  the  positions 


BULL  RUN.  247 

they  had  conquered  since  noon ;  but  the  latter  soon  returned 
to  the  charge.  Jackson  had  found  in  Sherman,  then  a  simple 
chief  of  brigade  like  himself,  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel ;  part 
of  the  Federal  artillery  had  been  captured — it  was  recaptured; 
that  of  the  Confederates  was  next  in  jeopardy,  and  Sherman 
once  more  reached  the  Henry  house ;  but  he  was  unable  to  pro- 
ceed farther,  and  found  himself  again  checked  in  front  of  the 
positions  where,  three  hours  before,  Jackson  had  so  opportunely 
established  himself.  His  soldiers,  worn  out  by  fatigue,  oppressed 
by  a  burning  sun,  distracted  by  the  excitement  of  the  conflict, 
which  was  new  to  them,  made  only  a  feeble  resistance;  many  of 
them  left  their  ranks,  and  regiments  were  seen  firing  upon  each 
other;  at  last,  the  discharges  of  musketry  became  less  frequent, 
and  presently  ceased  entirely.  It  was  three  o'clock ;  both  parties 
felt  that  the  decisive  moment  had  arrived. 

On  the  side  of  the  Federals,  the  regiments  which  had  been  suc- 
cessively esigaged  without  order  or  method  had  all  suffered;  their 
organization  was  affected,  their  last  reserves  had  been  in  action, 
their  ammunition  was  beginning  to  give  out,  and  they  had  long 
since  thrown  away  the  three  days'  rations  which  they  carried  in 
their  haversacks  in  the  morning.  They  felt,  moreover,  that  an 
interrupted  success  is  almost  invariably  the  prelude  to  a  defeat. 
Still,  nothing  was  yet  lost;  it  only  required  a  final  effort  to  wrest 
the  approaches  of  the  Manassas  plateau  from  tlie  troops  who 
had  so  persistently  defended  it.  The  effort  could  be  made. 
Howard's  brigade  of  Heintzelman's  division,  which  had  scarcely 
been  in  action,  passed  to  the  front  on  the  right  and  reoj^ened  the 
fighting. 

During  this  time,  the  turnpike  having  been  cleared  of  all  the 
obstacles  which  obstructed  it  as  far  as  the  stone  bridge,  McDowell 
ordered  Schenck  to  cross  Bull  Run  and  strike  the  extreme  right 
of  the  enemy  in  flank.  This  manoeuvre  might  have  secured  the 
victory,  and  Burnside,  who  had  not  been  in  action  since  noon, 
was  in  a  condition  to  support  him  and  take  part  once  more  in  the 
conflict. 

Beauregard  also  fully  appreciated  the  increasing  danger  of  his 
position.  Death  was  striking  down  one  after  another  nearly  all 
the  chiefs  whose  example  had  until  then  stimulated  his  troops. 


248  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

Bee  and  Bartow  had  been  killed  near  the  Henry  house ;  Hainpton 
was  wounded ;  most  of  the  colonels  were  disabled ;  Beauregard 
and  Jackson  had  been  both  slightly  wounded  while  putting  them- 
selves at  the  head  of  their  soldiers  to  bring  them  back  into  line; 
the  Confederate  artillery  had  suffered  cruelly;  many  of  their 
guns  had  been  dismounted,  and  the  officers  themselves  were 
obliged  to  take  the  places  of  those  who  had  served  the  otlier 
pieces.  The  general-in-chief  had  not  a  single  fresh  regiment 
at  his  disposal;  Ewell  and  Bonham  had  not  yet  had  time  to 
arrive,  while  Early,  whom  he  had  summoned  to  the  field  of 
battle  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  had  not  yet  made  his 
appearance.  At  this  moment  Howard  recommenced  the  attack. 
The  Confederate  general  was  watching  him  anxiously  when  he 
perceived  in  the  prolongation  of  the  Federal  lines  a  great  cloud 
of  dust  rising  above  the  tree-tops.  It  was  evidently  a  body  of 
troops  which,  not  having  yet  taken  part  in  the  conflict,  was  com- 
ing to  decide,  by  its  intervention,  the  issue  of  the  battle.  To 
which  of  the  two  armies  did  it  belong?  Its  position  led  Beau- 
regard to  believe  for  an  instant  that  they  were  the  heads  of 
Patterson's  column  coming  from  the  Valley  of  Virginia,  and  he  was 
already  preparing  to  cover  his  retreat,  wliich  seemed  inevitable, 
when  he  thought  he  recognized  friendly  colors  in  the  flags  that 
were  floating  in  the  breeze.  A  moment  after,  sudden  discharges 
of  musketry  informed  him  that  these  troops  brought  him  victory. 
They  were  in  fact  the  3000  soldiers  of  the  army  of  the  Shenan- 
doah for  which  he  had  been  impatiently  looking  since  morning. 
Bee's  brigade  of  that  army  having  alone  arrived  during  the  night. 
Johnston,  who  had  gone  to  the  rear  of  the  array  to  hurry  forward 
and  organize  the  reinforcements,  had  joined  tliose  troops  that  had 
arrived,  shortly  after  noon,  at  Manassas  Junction,  and  leading 
them  in  person,  had  brought  them  into  the  woods  which  extend 
westward  of  the  Sudeley  road,  on  which  the  Federals  confidently 
rested  their  extreme  right.  Without  waiting  for  their  comrades, 
1700  men  of  the  brigade,  headed  by  Kirby  Smith,  one  of  the 
best  officers  in  the  Confederate  army,  fell  suddenly  upon  this  flank 
at  the  moment  when  Beauregard  was  watching-  their  movements 
from  a  distance  with  so  much  uneasiness.  Smith  was  woumled, 
but  his  fall  did  not  check  his  soldiers,  who  were  supported  by  a 


BULL  RUN.  249 

battery  of  artillery,  led  on  by  Colonel  Elzey,  and  the  Federals, 
surprised  and  disconcerted,  were  thrown  into  confusion. 

At  the  same  time.  Early,  who  had  only  received  Beaure- 
gard's orders  at  noon,  approached  the  field  of  battle ;  Johnston 
took  advantage  of  his  arrival  to  complete  the  success  he  had 
already  achieved  against  the  Federal  right.  In  pursuance  of  his 
instructions,  Early  made  a  detour  to  the  left,  and,  deploying 
beyond  the  line  of  Kirby  Smith,  took  the  enemy,  already 
seriously  shaken,  in  the  rear.  Under  the  fire  of  his  three  regi- 
ments the  whole  riorht  wino;  of  the  Federals  fell  back  in  the 
greatest  disorder  upon  the  centre,  which  it  carried  along  with  it. 

The  nearer  McDowell's  army  had  been  to  victory  the  more 
irreparable  was  its  defeat ;  its  strength  was  all  exhausted ;  it 
might  have  followed  up  a  success,  but  it  no  longer  possessed  the 
physical  and  moral  energy  necessary  to  sustain  a  reverse;  the 
bonds  of  discipline  had  gradually  relaxed  in  the  excitement 
of  the  battle,  or  rudely  snapped  through  the  death  of  chiefs 
who  had  not  been  replaced.  The  Sudeley  road  and  the  slopes 
adjoining  the  Henry  house,  where,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before, 
a  whole  army  was  fighting  so  fiercely,  were  instantly  covered 
with  fugitives ;  the  field-pieces  were  abandoned,  and  the  whole 
first  tier  of  the  plateau  was  occupied  by  the  Confederates,  whose 
lines,  though  much  thinned,  advanced  with  the  ardor  that  certain 
victory  inspires.  The  battle  w^as  lost  to  the  Federals.  Schenck, 
who  had  not  yet  commenced  his  movement,  Davies  and  Richard- 
son, who  had  resisted  many  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Confed- 
erates to  cross  Bull  E,un,  could  do  nothing  to  change  this  result ; 
Burnside,  whose  brigade  was  held  in  reserve,  could  not  arrive  in 
time  to  prevent  the  disintegration  (debandade)  from  becoming 
general. 

The  Confederate  regiments  of  Cocke  and  Bonham,  which  had 
remained  until  then  upon  the  line  of  Bull  E,un,  came  up  to  com- 
])lete  the  rout  of  the  Federal  left.  Holmes  pressed  the  centre. 
In  the  midst  of  this  confusion,  the  battalion  of  regulars  was 
almost  the  only  one  to  preserve  good  order,  thus  showing  what 
discipline  can  accomplish  and  of  what  importance  it  is  under 
such  circumstances.  The  combined  efforts  of  McDowell  and  his 
g<;nerals  succeeded  at  last  in  rallying  around  this  battalion  some 


250  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

determined  men  and  the  nucleus  of  a  few  regiments  whrdi  had 
been  less  under  fire  or  better  handled  during  the  battle.  A  line 
was  thus  formed  on  the  ground  where  the  conflict  had  commenced, 
which  temporarily  overawed  the  enemy,  while  the  rest  of  the 
army  was  flying  everywhere,  across  roads  and  fields,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  fords  it  had  crossed  in  the  morning,  between  Sudeley 
Springs  and  the  stone  bridge. 

Fortunately  for  McDowell,  the  Confederates  were  scarcely  in  a 
condition  to  follow  up  their  success;  their  losses  had  been  so 
heavy,  their  efforts  so  protracted,  and  they  had  seen  themselves 
so  near  an  irreparable  defeat,  that  victory  found  them  almost 
broken  down.  They  halted  on  the  field  of  battle  which  they  had 
so  dearly  won,  too  well  satisfied  wnth  their  victory  to  seek  to  pro- 
voke an  adversary  of  whose  utter  helplessness  they  had  no  know- 
ledge. Consequently,  the  line  formed  by  McDowell  to  cover 
his  disaster  was  only  molested  by  a  few  volleys  of  musketry  fired 
at  a  distance ;  the  battle  ceased  as  soon  as  the  Federals  had  dis- 
appeared behind  the  woods  where  Burnside  had  commenced  the 
attack  in  the  morning.  When  the  Confederates  bethought  them- 
selves at  last  of  pursuit,  the  remnant  of  the  Federal  army  had 
crossed  Bull  Run  at  the  various  fords  that  are  to  be  found  above 
the  stone  bridge,  leaving  behind  them  all  the  cannon  posted 
upon  the  right  bank,  a  large  number  of  muskets,  almost  all 
their  wounded,  and  a  multitude  of  stragglers  wandering  in  the 
woods. 

The  crossing  of  Bull  Run,  of  which  the  approaches  are  diflfi.- 
cult,  entirely  dissolved  the  few  corps  which  had  remained  united 
until  then.  Fragments  of  regiments  and  isolated  companies  soon 
became  broken  up  among  the  fugitives  who  encumbered  the  narrow 
roads  followed  in  the  morning  by  Hunter  and  Heintzelman  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river.  Their  columns,  which  a  common 
impulse  drove  towards  Centreville,  successively  emerged  into  the 
"Warren ton  turnpike,  and,  crowding  on  a  single  road,  increased 
the  disorder  still  more.  During  this  time,  the  Confederates 
on  the  battle-field,  following  the  main  road,  which  Tyler  had 
cleared  a  few  hours  before,  got  as  far  as  the  stone  bridge,  and 
not  daring  to  venture  on  the  other  side,  they  sent  a  few  cannon- 
balls  into  the  midst  of  that  dense  tide  of  fugitives.     One  of 


BULL  RUN.  251 

these  pr  )jectiles  demolished  a  caisson  on  the  bridge  where  the 
road  crosses  a  little  tributary  of  Bull  Run,  which  threw  ad- 
ditional confusion  into  the  ranks  of  the  vanquished.  This  road 
forms  a  long  straight  line,  ascending  by  gentle  acclivities  froir 
Bull  Eun  to  Centreville.  It  thus  presented  excellent  points  oi 
view  for  observing  what  was  passing  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  and  a  crowd  of  curious  spectators  had  gathered  there  since 
morning  to  enjoy  the  novel  spectacle  of  a  real  battle.  There  had 
followed  in  the  train  of  McDowell's  army  from  Alexandria,  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  men  of  all  parties  and  professions,  journalists 
from  every  country,  photographers  with  their  instruments — all 
assembled  to  witness  the  defeat  of  the  rebels.  Although  out  of 
reach  of  cannon-shot,  and  frequently  prevented  by  the  woods 
from  seeing  the  battle,  this  crowd  actually  imagined  that  they 
were  participating  in  it,  and  this  thought  long  afforded  them 
a  foolish  satisfaction.  It  finally  moved  off  slowly  in  the 
direction  of  Alexandria,  on  receiving  the  first  tidings  of  the 
check  experienced  by  the  Federals.  But  when  the  fugitives 
came  crowding  into  the  road  they  were  following,  and  the  balls 
began  to  whistle  close  to  the  ears  of  those  men  harassed  by 
fatigue  and  fright,  a  wild  panic  seized  both  soldiers  and 
spectators.  The  most  fiery  street-orators  were  seen  leading  the 
way  in  a  rapid  flight,  and  journalists  who  pretended  to  describe 
the  battle  from  a  distance  outstripped  the  whole  senseless  crowd 
in  swiftness. 

Miles  had  done  nothing  to  check  the  disaster  which  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  Confederates  on  the  left  bank  of  Bull  Run  had 
increased.  Instead  of  occupying  the  crossings  of  that  river, 
which  he  had  been  ordered  to  watch,  he  had  hastened  to  summon 
all  the  troops  under  his  command  to  Centreville,  where  he  had 
himself  remained.  McDowell,  who  displayed  great  energy  and 
self-possession  in  that  terrible  emergency,  hastened  to  remedy  the 
error.  While  the  regulars  and  the  cavalry  were  covering  the  flight 
of  the  army,  and  were  the  last  to  cross  the  little  river  which 
was  to  give  its  name  to  that  fatal  battle,  Blenker's  German  brigade, 
w^hich  had  not  been  in  action,  took  a  position  on  Cub  Run,  to 
the  right  and  left  of  the  road  followed  by  the  fugitives,  whom  it 
could  not  hope  to  arrest.  Its  excellent  behavior  succeeded,  toward 


252  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

twilight,  in  checking  the  parties  of  Confederate  cavalry  who  were 
pursuing  the  retreating  Federals,  and  picking  up  prisoners 
and  trophies  of  every  kind,  which  were  abandoned  to  them 
without  any  attempt  at  resistance.  When  night  came  at  last  to 
the  assistance  of  the  vanquished,  this  brigade  fell  back  upon 
Centreville,  where  the  whole  of  Miles's  division,  and  the  brigades 
of  Schenck  and  Eichardson,  which  had  not  been  in  the  fights  on 
the  right  bank  of  Bull  Run,  had  assembled  in  good  order.  The 
condition  of  the  army,  however,  did  not  admit  of  its  remaining 
in  that  position;  there  w^ere  only  five  brigades  left  in  fighting 
order ;  all  the  troops  who  had  participated  in  the  combats  on  the 
Warrenton  turnpike  had  dispersed,  and  were  proceeding,  without 
order  or  leaders,  in  isolated  groups,  toward  the  fortifications  of 
Arlington  and  Alexandria,  under  the  shelter  of  which  they  hoped 
to  find  some  safety.  It  was  necessary  to  follow  and  protect  them. 
The  troops  left  Centreville  during  the  night  with  the  greatest 
part  of  the  supply-trains  that  had  gathered  there;  Richardson 
was  the  last  to  leave.  During  the  whole  of  the  22d,  fugitives 
were  constantly  arriving  upon  the  borders  of  the  Potomac ;  fear 
doubling  their  strength,  they  had  marched  all  night  long. 
The  five  brigades  which  formed  a  sad  escort  to  these  returning 
parties  arrived  also  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning ;  on  the  23d  the  remnants  of  the  army  which 
seven  days  before  had  taken  the  field  with  such  imprudent  con- 
fidence, gathered  around  the  forts  behind  which  they  were  to  be 
reorganized.  The  dissolution  of  this  army,  too  newly  organ- 
ized to  resist  the  shock  it  had  encountered,  was  almost  com- 
plete. Nothing  could  repress  the  crowds  of  soldiers  collected 
upon  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac ;  they  inundated  Wash- 
ington, and  many  of  them  found  means  to  go  as  far  as  New 
York.  They  could  talk  of  nothing  else  but  the  masked  bat- 
teries that  had  decimated  them,  and  of  the  formidable  obstacles 
which  had  stopped  them ;  they  muttered  treasonable  words  and 
cursed  their  leaders. 

The  latter  flung  bitter  reproaches  at  each  other,  and  the  ex- 
citement in  Washington  w^as  at  its  height;  the  spectators,  who 
had  only  witnessed  the  panic,  forgot  the  brave  struggle  sus- 
tained by  the  army,  and  ended  by  persuading  the  public  that 


BULL  RUN.  253 

there  had  been  no  battle,  but  simply  a  rout.  Finally,  the  gov- 
ernment, more  uneasy  than  it  had  been  during  the  first  days  of 
its  installation,  expected  to  see  the  Confederate  artillery  come 
to  bombard  Washington. 

These  fears  were  vain.  Beauregard  had  no  idea  of  threat- 
ening the  capital  of  the  enemy.  Mr.  Davis,  who  had  ar- 
rived on  the  field  of  battle  just  in  time  to  be  present  at  the 
victory,  had  returned  to  Richmond  in  order  to  communicate  the 
news  to  his  Congress,  which  had  just  assembled ;  and  in  spite  of 
the  representations  of  a  few  officers  it  had  been  decided  that  no 
oifensive  movement  should  take  place  for  the  present.  This 
determination  was  severely  criticised  in  the  South.  First,  John- 
ston, and  then  Beauregard,  was  accused  of  having  neglected  the 
opportunity  to  carry  tlie  war  into  Pennsylvania,  and  of  ending  it 
perhaps  by  a  single  blow,  at  the  same  time  installing  the  Con- 
federate Congress  in  the  Capitol  of  Washington.  But  this  city 
was  surrounded  by  works  behind  which  the  poorest  troops  could 
make  a  good  fight ;  those  of  the  Confederate  general  had  not  yet 
been  tried  in  making  attacks  upon  such  positions ;  besides,  the 
want  of  sufficient  means  of  transportation  rendered  it  almost 
impossible  for  him  to  undertake  an  offensive  campaign. 

This  inaction,  fatal  to  their  cause,  should  only  be  attributed  to 
the  circumstances  which  surrounded  the  army;  but  its  chiefs  may 
be  blamed  for  not  having  at  least  detached  a  few  brigades  to  worry 
the  Federals  and  harass  them  in  Maryland  by  crossing  the  Poto- 
mac. We  have  also  seen  that  this  was  not  their  only  mistake, 
and  that  had  it  not  been  for  some  fortunate  chances  the  disposition 
they  had  made  of  their  troops  along  Bull  Pun,  the  length  of  time  it 
took  them  to  discover  McDowell's  movement,  and  their  obstinacy 
in  persisting  to  attack  with  their  right,  would  inevitably  have 
caused  their  defeat. 

The  only  error  of  McDowell  consisted  in  having  relied  too 
much  on  the  perseverance  of  his  soldiers  and  the  promises  of 
General  Scott.  He  would,  in  fact,  have  achieved  a  certain  victory 
if,  as  he  believed,  he  had  only  had  to  contend  with  Beauregard's 
army.  The  Federal  general-in-chief  must  have  been  perfectly 
well  aware  that  Johnston,  having  a  railroad  at  his  service,  could 
at  any  time  slip  away  from  Patterson  and  reach  Manassas,  witli. 


254  THIl  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

out  Patterson's  being  able  to  pursue  him  to  any  serious  purpose. 
"While  recommending  the  utmost  caution  to  the  latter/  he  never 
could  have  supposed  that  Patterson  would  have  indetinitely  de- 
tained forces  whose  presence  was  imperatively  demanded  else- 
where. Still,  Johnston  did  not  move  until  the  18th,  the  day  on 
which,  as  Scott  informed  his  lieutenant,  the  attack  on  Manassas 
was  to  take  place.  The  Federal  general-in-chief  committed  the 
twofold  error  of  not  notifying  Patterson  that  McDowell's  move- 
ment had  been  postponed,  and  of  not  transmitting  to  the  latter 
the  important  despatch  by  which,  on  the  20th,  Patterson  informed 
him  of  Johnston's  departure.*  Public  opinion,  imperfectly  en- 
lightened, condemned  both  Patterson  and  Scott:  the  former  re- 
tired  to  private  life,  whither  Scott,  who  was  no  longer  the  brilliant 
general  of  the  Mexican  war,  but  an  infirm  old  man,  was  to  follow 
him  a  few  months  afterwards.  McDowell  also  suffered  for  the 
faults  of  others  by  seeing  himself  reduced  to  the  simple  command 
of  a  division. 

The  battle  of  Bull  Run  was  a  misfortune,  and  not  a  disgrace, 
to  the  Federal  arms ;  the  reports  of  losses  on  both  sides  prove 
that  it  was  bravely  disputed.  The  Confederates  acknowledged 
378  killed  and  1489  wounded ;  the  Federals,  481  killed  and  1011 
wounded ;  the  latter,  moreover,  left  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy 
1216  prisoners,  28  pieces  of  cannon,  and  10  flags;  but  the  rout — 
or,  in  other  words,  the  panic — in  the  midst  of  which  that  enemy 
picked  up  most  of  his  trophies,  was  one  of  those  accidents  to 
which  even  victorious  armies  are  sometimes  liable,  and  against 
which  old  troops  are  not  always  able  to  guard.  The  importance 
of  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  cannot  be  measured  by  the  amount 
of  losses  sustained  by  the  two  contending  parties — losses  almost 
insia-nificant,  even  with  reference  to  the  small  number  of  com- 
batants,  when  compared  with  those  sustained  in  the  great  battles 
we  shall  yet  have  to  describe. 

Its  immediate  effect  upon  military  operations  was  to  produce  a 
sudden  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  belligerents.  The  possession 
of  Virginia,  with  the  exception  of  that  portion  which  had  been 
recaptured  by  McClellan,  was  secured  to  the  Confederates.     Rich- 

*  The  reader  is  referred  to  an  able  pamphlet  issued  by  General  Patterson  in 
vindication  of  his  conduct  in  this  campaign. — Ed. 


BULL  RUN.  255 

moiid  was  beyond  danger  of  any  attack,  and  Washington  was 
threatened  anew.     We  shall  see  the  Federal  government  organize 
a  powerful  army  within  its  capital  ;  but  its  opponents,  also  taking 
advantao-e  of  the  respite  which  the  victory  gave  them,  will  increase 
their  forces  almost  as  rapidly,  so  as  to  keep  those  of  the  enemy 
constantly  hi  check ;  and  they  remained  quiet  during  a  period  of 
nine  months  on  the  field  of  battle  conquered  on  the  21st  of  July. 
But  it  was  chiefly  through  its  moral  effect  that  this  first  encoun- 
ter was  to  exercise  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  war  of  which 
it  was  only  the  prelude.     The  South  saw  in  this  victory  a  kind 
of  ratification  of  her  claims.     It  was  not  only  the  Federal  sol- 
diers  who    were   vanquished    on   that  day,  but  with   them   all 
who  had  remained  more  or  less  openly  loyal  to  the  Union  in 
the  Southern  States.     They  had  protested  against  a  simple  insur- 
rection ;  but  success  imparted  to  the  government  of  Mr.  Davis, 
in  their  estimation,  an  authority  before  which  they  all  bowed ;  if 
a  few  secretly  preserved  their  old  attachment  for  the  national 
flag,  most  of  them  fully  submitted  to  the  new  power  which  had 
just  achieved  so  complete  a  triumph.     None  of  the  enemies  of 
the  great  Republic  any  longer  feared  to  express  their  sympa- 
thies for  a  cause  which  seemed  to  prosper,  or  to  give  it  moral  and 
material  aid.     It  required  at  this  moment  an  unbounded  faith 
in  the  energy  of  the  American  people  to  refute  the  arguments  of 
those  who  believed  that  their  ruin  was  already  consummated ; 
most  of  the  European  governments,  who  should  then  have  exacted 
from  their  citizens  a  strict  observance  of  the  duties  of  neutrality, 
allowed  from  that  moment  naval  expeditions  to  be  fitted  out  in 
their  ports,  which  were  to  give  such  powerful  aid  to  the  Confed- 
erate cause.     In  short,  this  victory  inspired  the  South  with  unlim- 
ited confidence  in  her  own  resources  and  the  conviction  that  she 
could  never  be  vanquished.     At  the  outset  this  conviction  was  a 
great  element  of  success  ;  it  inspired  her  soldiers,  already  impressed 
with  a  sense  of  their  superiority  over  their  adversaries,  with  that 
daring  which  frequently  determines  the  fate  of  battles.     But  at 
the  same  time  it  also  rendered  her  improvident,  and  made  het 
neglect  many  details  the  importance  of  which  she  felt  too  late; 
it  prevented  her,  at  this  critical  hour,  from  availing  herself  of  all 
her  resources,  from  calling  together  all  able-bodied  men,  from 


256  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

organizing  the  interior  defence  of  the  States,  which  she  thought 
could  never  be  invaded ;  and,  in  this  manner,  it  prepared  the  way 
for  the  disasters  she  met  with  in  the  West  the  following  year. 
So  that  some  of  the  military  writers  favorable  to  her  cause  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  a  defeat  would  have  been  more  bene- 
ficial to  her  than  the  victory  to  which  she  was  indebted  for  this 
dangerous  assurance. 

This  disaster,  which  might  have  discouraged  the  North,  proved, 
on  the  contrary,  a  salutary  lesson.  Far  from  dividing  the  States 
faithful  to  the  Union,  as  the  Confederate  leaders  had  anticipated, 
it  only  had  the  effect  of  stimulating  their  patriotism  and  of  ren- 
dering them  more  clear-sighted.  At  the  news  of  the  defeat,  they 
appreciated  at  last  the  difficulty  of  the  task  they  had  undertaken, 
but  they  never  shrank  from  it.  They  understood  that  in  order 
to  obtain  success  in  a  great  war,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  have  a  great 
number  of  soldiers — it  is  necessary  that  they  should  be  well  trained ; 
that  armies  are  complicated  machines  which  require  as  much 
science  as  care  in  their  construction,  and  that  if  popular  enthu- 
siasm and  personal  courage  supply  its  materials,  it  requires  dis- 
cipline to  combine  them.  From  that  day  the  North  submitted 
patiently  and  with  determination  of  purpose  to  all  that  was  re- 
quired to  organize  her  forces  and  to  put  them  in  a  condition  to 
undertake  long  and  fatiguing  campaigns.  Although  the  soldiers 
composing  the  national  armies  still  bear  the  name  of  volunteers, 
the  aim  of  all  their  efforts  will  henceforth  be  to  acquire  that  in- 
struction and  that  experience  which  cause  the  superiority  of  reg- 
ular troops. 

The  improvised  generals  will  give  place  to  those  who  are 
brought  up  in  the  military  career;  the  officers  who  seriously 
try  \o  learn  their  profession  will  be  greatly  encouraged  by  the 
confidence  of  the  public  and  of  the  army.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
to  this  American  democracy,  which  is  essentially  practical  and 
profits  by  experience,  that  the  partisans  of  levies  en  masse  and 
improvised  armies  must  look  for  confirmation  of  their  theories.* 

*  See  Appendix  to  this  volume,  Note  E, 


CHAPTER  III. 

PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE. 

IN  the  midst  of  the  excitement  that  prevailed  in  Washington 
on  the  mom'nful  day  of  July  22d,  Congress  set  an  example 
of  courage  to  the  American  people.  While  the  remnants  of  the 
army  defeated  on  the  previous  day  were  beginning  to  crowd  the 
streets  of  the  capital,  and  everybody  looked  at  Arlington  Heights 
with  a  feeling  of  uneasiness,  expecting  to  see  the  enemy's  artillery 
make  its  appearance,  and  while  the  military  chiefs  were  endeavor- 
ing to  reorganize  their  respective  forces,  the  two  Houses  assembled 
at  the  Capitol.  Grief  was  portrayed  on  every  countenance,  but 
it  had  not  destroyed  the  determination  of  those  who  supported 
the  President's  policy. 

A  few  days  before  they  had  responded  to  his  call  for  a  levy  of 
400,000  volunteers  and  the  issue  of  four  hundred  million  dollars 
for  their  support,  by  a  resolution  increasing  both  these  numbers 
and  authorizing  the  enlistment  of  500,000  volunteers  and  an  ex- 
penditure of  five  hundred  million  dollars.  This  resolution  was 
first  presented  in  the  Senate  on  the  10th  of  July,  and  on  the 
13th  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  But  the  amendments 
introduced  by  the  partisans  of  peace-at-any-price,  who  were  al- 
lowed a  perfect  freedom  of  speech,  and  who  desired  to  prevent  the 
President  from  employing  these  resources  to  put  down  the  rebel- 
lion, had  delayed  the  final  vote  on  the  resolution. 

By  a  singular  coincidence,  this  debate  had  been  fixed  for 
the  22d  of  July,  when  the  impending  disaster  was  scarcely  con- 
templated. This  disaster,  so  far  from  embarrassing  the  debate, 
only  served  to  impart  to  it  a  peculiar  solemnity,  and  the  eager- 
ness with  which  the  resolution  was  passed  showed  that  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  American  people  fully  appreciated  the  duties 
devolved  upon  them  by  such  grave  circumstances. 

The  Federal  Congress  had  often  been  the  hot-bed  of  miserable 

Vol.  I.— 17  257 


258  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

intrigues ;  this  is  a  reproach  which  attaches  not  only  to  all  polit- 
ical assemblies,  but  to  every  human  power.  By  their  impatience 
and  unseasonable  interference  in  military  matters,  they  sometimes 
jeopardized  success;  but  to  make  up  for  this  they  gave  to  the 
nation,  at  every  critical  period  of  the  war,  the  example  of  perse- 
verance, and  manifested  that  true  patriotism  which  is  stimulated 
more  by  defeat  than  by  victory,  and  Avhich  after  each  reverse 
resolutely  imposes  upon  itself  new  and  heavier  sacrifices.  If 
the  check  of  Bull  Run  demonstrated  the  inexperience  of  the 
American  soldiers,  it  also  proved  that  the  people  to  whom  they 
belonged  possessed  that  manly  temperament  which  gathers  strength 
from  adversity,  and  that  constancy  which,  after  many  delays  and 
fruitless  efforts,  succeeded  at  last  in  rendering  available  resources 
ignored  by  their  adversaries. 

It  is  an  error,  we  believe,  to  attribute  the  honor  of  this  quality 
exclusively  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race ;  we  should  rather  attribute  it 
to  the  working  of  free  institutions.  A  people  living  under  such 
institutions  do  not  prepare  for  war  after  the  manner  of  conspira- 
tors; hence  the  frequent  checks  that  are  experienced  at  the  outset; 
but  they  profit  by  experience,  their  courage  increases  in  proportion 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  struggle,  they  persevere  in  it  because 
they  have  voluntarily  assumed  its  responsibilities,  and  every  citi- 
zen, making  it  a  personal  matter,  sustains  the  common  cause  with 
a  zeal  which  develops  the  national  strength  at  the  very  moment 
when  a  despotic  government  would  already  have  been  struck 
powerless  before  a  wearied  and  unsympathizing  public. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  creation  of  those  large  armies  which  carried 
the  national  flag  during  a  period  of  four  years  dates  from  the 
22d  of  July.  The  imperfect  organization  Avhich  united  the 
heterogeneous  elements  led  by  McDowell  to  the  field  of  Manassas 
had  not  been  able  to  withstand  the  first  shock,  and  his  army  had 
melted  away  like  a  lump  of  ice  before  the  fire  of  the  battle.  On 
that  day  all  America  understood  that  an  army  cannot  subsist  and 
move  about  like  an  individual ;  that  there  should  be,  on  the  one 
hand,  an  active  and  educated  staff  to  regulate  its  movements — 
on  the  other  hand,  an  experienced  administrative  department  to 
provide  for  its  daily  wants ;  and  that  without  these  appliances  it 
becomes  an  inert  and  lifeless  body  in  the  hands  of  the  ablest 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  259 

chief.  The  people  learned  that  it  was  not  sufficient  to  have 
placed  500,000  men  at  the  disposal  of  the  President,  but  that 
it  was  necessary  to  aid  him  in  converting  those  men  into  sol- 
diers ;  they  cast  aside  all  their  prejudices  and  gave  up  all  their 
illusions.  "Drill  and  organize"  was  the  watchword  on  every 
lip.  Instead  of  casting  a  stone  at  the  regular  officers  who  had 
had  the  misfortune  of  being  vanquished,  but  who  had  bravely 
performed  their  duty,  justice  was  meted  out  to  them,  and  they 
were  entrusted  with  the  task  of  repairing  the  disaster.  Almost 
all  the  principal  commands  in  the  Federal  army  were  bestowed 
upon  them,  and  the  States  contended  for  the  privilege  of  con- 
fidino;  the  new  regiments  that  were  being  organized  to  these 
officers.  Nay  more,  their  advice,  when  they  asked  the  country 
to  renounce  that  fatal  impatience  which  had  brought  on  the  Bull 
Run  campaign,  was  listened  to,  and  public  opinion  accepted  with- 
out a  murmur  the  long  inaction  which  was  deemed  necessary  to 
organize  the  national  forces. 

This  inaction,  which  lasted  until  the  year  1862,  was  interrupted 
from  time  to  time  only  by  combats  of  little  importance.  The 
principal  occupation  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Federal  armies  during 
the  six  months  succeeding  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  was  to  prepare 
the  instruments  they  were  to  use  at  a  later  period.  The  order  of 
our  narrative  itself,  therefore,  leads  us  to  say  a  few  words  in  this 
place  concerning  the  great  task  they  had  to  accomplish  before  they 
could  take  the  field  in  earnest. 

The  most  important  thing  to  be  done  was  to  reconstruct  the 
army  which  had  been  beaten  at  Bull  Ran.  General  McClellan 
was  summoned  in  great  haste  on  the  22d  of  July  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  entrusted  with  this  duty.  McDowell,  who  had  been  offi^red 
an  independent  command  in  the  West,  preferred  to  remain  at  the 
head  of  a  simple  division  among  the  companions  of  his  defeat. 
General  McClellan  had  made  himself  known  by  the  successful 
and  rapid  campaign  which  three  weeks  before  had  freed  West 
Virginia,  but  he  happily  possessed  also  organizing  talents  which 
he  had  not  been  able  to  display  in  that  small  command. 
His  laborious  character,  his  precise,  methodical  mind,  and  his 
vast  military  knowledge  peculiarly  fitted  him  for  the  ungrate- 
ful and  difficult  work  which  had  fallen  to  his  lot.      He  was 


260  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  creator  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac — of  that  army  placed  at 
the  most  vulnerable  point,  which,  although  paralyzed  by  the 
necessity  of  covering  the  capital,  served  as  the  principal  pivot 
of  military  operations ;  that  army  which,  often  unfortunate,  was 
never  discouraged,  and  was  rewarded  at  the  end  of  the  struggle 
by  attaining  the  honor  of  striking  the  decisive  blow. 

In  the  Western  States,  the  war,  which  was  only  a  continuation 
of  the  quarrel,  already  often  a  bloody  one,  between  abolitionists 
and  pro-slavery  men,  had  been  carried  on  until  then  from  town 
to  town,  from  farm  to  farm,  and  from  man  to  man,  according  to 
the  old-fashioned  mode  of  fighting — a  civil  war  par  exoellenee,  as 
indecisive  as  it  was  bitter.  But,  in  order  to  obtain  important 
results  in  those  vast  regions,  it  was  necessary  to  undertake  much 
longer  campaigns  than  in  the  East,  where  the  vicinity  of  hostile 
capitals  placed  the  two  opponents  forcibly  face  to  face.  It  was 
therefore  still  more  important  that  the  armies  destined  to  operate 
in  that  quarter  should  receive  the  organization  without  which 
they  could  not  move  over  great  distances. 

These  armies,  which  the  volunteers  from  the  Western  States 
swelled  so  rapidly,  contained  a  large  number  of  stalwart  men, 
better  inured  to  hardships  than  those  of  the  East,  but  they 
were  poorer  in  materials  of  war  than  the  army  of  the  Potomac, 
which  was  within  reach  of  the  principal  arsenals  and  the  industrial 
cities  of  the  Union. 

Before  describing  the  slow  organization  of  the  Federal  forces 
which  preceded  the  serious  resumption  of  hostilities,  we  has- 
ten to  remark  that  the  Confederates  were  the  unwilling  accom- 
plices in  that  inaction  which  enabled  their  adversaries  to  make 
their  preparations  at  leisure.  The  opportunity  of  marching  upon 
Washington  the  day  following  their  first  victory  having  once 
been  suffered  to  slip,  the  commonest  prudence  compelled  them 
to  remain  in  the  defensive  attitude  which  had  been  the  cause  of 
their  success.  If  the  Federals  had  been  confronted  by  an  enemy 
better  prepared  to  take  the  offensive,  neither  patriotism  nor  the 
number  of  their  soldiers  would  have  been  of  any  avail.  This 
is  a  consideration  which  Europeans,  whose  States  are  surrounded 
by  powerfully  armed  neighbors,  should  never  lose  sight  of  when 
they  study  the   manner    in  which  America,  after   having  been. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  261 

taken  unawares,  was  able  to  improvise  her  large  armies  of  vol- 
unteers. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  recall  here  a  personal  reminiscence 
showing  how  diiFerent  were  the  circumstances  which  alone  favored 
the  formation  of  these  armies,  from  those  presented  in  the  wars 
of  which  our  continent  is  too  often  the  theatre. 

The  author  arrived  in  Washington  and  had  the  honor  to  enter 
the  army  of  the  Potomac  two  months  after  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run.  Not  a  musket-shot  had  been  exchancred  durino-  that  time 
between  the  two  hostile  forces,  which  in  the  mean  while  watched 
each  other  a  short  distance  aj)art  between  Arlington  and  Fairfax 
Court-house. 

A  balloon  in  the  service  of  the  army  rose  every  evening  to 
reconnoitre  the  surrounding  country;  an  ascension  was  proposed 
and  accepted;  it  M-as  then  the  only  means  of  seeing  the  enemy. 
Scarcely  had  we  risen  above  the  ancient  trees  which  surround  the 
former  residence  of  General  Lee,  when  the  prospect  was  extended 
over  an  undulating  yet  uniform  country  covered  with  woods, 
spotted  here  and  there  with  small  clearings,  and  bounded  on  the 
west  by  the  long  chain  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  which  recalls  to  mind 
the  first  lines  of  the  Jura.  Thanks  to  the  brilliant  light  which 
illumines  the  last  hours  of  an  autumn  day  in  America,  the  ob- 
server can  distinguish  the  smallest  details  of  the  country  beneath 
him  like  a  plan  in  relief.  But  his  eye  seeks  in  vain  for  apparent 
signs  of  war;  peace  and  tranquillity  seemed  to  reign  everywhere. 
It  requires  all  his  attention  to  detect  some  recent  clearings,  at  the 
edge  of  which  a  line  of  reddish  earth  indicates  the  new  fortifica- 
tions. Meanwhile,  as  the  day  sinks,  he  sees  at  the  southward 
small  fleeces  of  bluish  smoke  breaking  gently  above  the  trees; 
they  are  multiplied  by  groups  in  a  vast  semicircle.  These  are 
the  Confederates  cooking  their  soup.  The  number  of  their  army 
can  almost  be  counted,  for  each  line  of  smoke  betrays  the  ket- 
tle of  a  platoon. 

Further  in  the  distance  the  vapor  of  a  locomotive  rushing 
toward  the  mountains  traces  by  its  wake  above  the  trees  the  line 
by  which  the  enemy  is  provisioned.  At  the  same  moment  a 
military  band  is  heard  directly  under  the  balloon.  All  the  clear- 
ings in  which  we  have  sought  in  vain  to  discover  the  Federal 


262  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

camps  are  filled  with  a  crowd  issuing  from  the  surrounding 
woods.  This  crowd  falls  into  line  and  forms  battalions,  the 
band  passing  before  the  ranks  with  that  peculiar  gait  which  the 
English  have  denominated  "goose-step."  Each  regiment  has 
two  flags — one  being  the  national  colors,  the  other  bearing  the  de- 
vice of  the  State  to  which  it  belongs,  together  with  its  regimental 
number.  These  flags  are  lowered ;  the  officers  salute ;  the  colonel 
takes  the  command;  and  a  moment  after  the  soldiers  all  disperse, 
for  it  is  neither  a  surprise  nor  the  prelude  of  a  forward  march 
which  has  thus  called  them  together,  but  the  ordinary  "evening 
parade." 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  absolute  calm  that  General  McClellan 
organized  the  army  of  the  Potomac. 

Congress  on  the  22d  of  July  had  correctly  expressed  the  senti- 
ments which  animated  the  entire  North  at  the  news  of  McDowell's 
defeat.  The  loyal  States  understood  at  last  the  magnitude  of  the 
undertaking  they  had  before  them,  and  determined  to  neglect 
nothing  that  could  compass  its  success.  Everybody  set  to 
work;  patriotic  donations  flowed  in;  subscription  funds  were 
opened  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers ;  women  manifested  as  much 
zeal  to  induce  men  to  enlist  as  in  the  South;  the  largest  iron 
mills  in  the  United  States  were  turned  into  cannon  foundries  or 
into  outfitting  establishments;  finally,  enlistments  became  more 
and  more  numerous.  The  three  months'  volunteers  raised  on  the 
first  call  of  April  15th  were  discharged,  but  a  great  many  of  them 
re-enlisted.  Those  who  had  responded  to  the  second  call  of  May 
4th,  instead  of  the  forty  battalions  asked  for,  already  formed  208 
battalions  on  the  21st  of  July.  In  order  to  complete  the  effective 
force  of  250,000  men  authorized  by  Congress,  it  was  only  neces- 
sary to  encourage  this  movement  and  to  receive  into  the  service 
of  the  Union  all  the  new  battalions  thus  created.  We  have 
already  described  the  manner  in  which  they  were  recruited  and 
organized  in  each  State.  As  soon  as  they  were  received  into  the 
Federal  service  by  the  mustering-officer,  who  had  charge  of  tl  e 
recruiting,  they  were  forwarded  to  the  armies  of  the  West  or  to 
the  army  of  the  Potomac,  which  were  ratlier  vast  camps  of  instruc- 
tion than  armies  in  the  field  ;  and  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to 
defile  without  too  much  confusion  they  were  formed  into  brigades 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  263 

of  one  or  twc  battalions  somewhat  less  inexperienced  than  them- 
selves, whose  example  could  be  of  use  to  them. 

The  interior  orgauizaton  of  the  armies  thus  formed  was 
modelled  precisely  upon  that  of  the  old  regular  army,  which  we 
have  described  elsewhere  in  full.  The  duties  pertaining  to  the 
various  branches  of  the  service  were  distributed  in  the  same  way, 
and  this  old  army  ceased  to  have  a  separate  existence  except  in 
the  annual  Army  Register.  It  saw  its  administrative  departments, 
with  their  personnel,  blended  with  those  that  had  been  created  for 
the  army  of  volunteers ;  it  saw  the  majority  of  its  officers  enter 
that  army  with  new  rank,  and  its  infantry  and  cavalry  regiments, 
together  with  its  batteries,  were  scattered  among  the  various 
armies  and  formed  into  divisions  with  the  volunteers. 

The  appointment  of  all  generals,  their  aides-de-camp,  and  all 
the  officers  and  employes  of  the  administrative  departments  be- 
longed to  the  President,  subject  to  the  confirmation  of  the  Senate. 
But  the  rank  thus  conferred  was  merely  temporary,  and  expired 
by  limitation  on  the  disbandment  of  the  volunteer  armies  for 
whose  special  wants  they  had  been  created. 

The  first  thing  required  was  the  appointment  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  generals  to  assume  the  commands  indispensable  to  such 
a  large  assemblage  of  troops;  for  the  regular  army  only  con- 
tained about  a  dozen,  nearly  all  new,  and  yet  two  or  three 
amono;  them  too  much  disabled  to  take  the  field.  But  none  of 
those  who  could  aspire  to  that  rank  possessed  antecedents  of 
sufficient  importance  to  entitle  them  to  the  choice  of  the  President, 
and  the  latter  was  reduced  to  the  alternative  either  of  encumber- 
ing the  cadres  with  men  whose  incapacity  might  be  found  out 
too  late,  or  of  suffering  the  most  important  posts  to  remain 
unfilled.  He  had  the  merit  of  listening  to  the  opinions  ex- 
pressed by  the  comrades  of  every  old  officer,  and  his  first  list  of 
generals,  composed  almost  entirely  of  West  Pointers,  furnished  him, 
together  with  a  few  chiefs  who  were  to  play  a  distinguished  part 
in  the  war,  a  considerable  number  of  educated  and  industrious 
men,  who  contributed  powerfully  to  the  organization  of  the  volun- 
teers. Selections  were  unquestionably  made  which  were  dictated 
either  by  political  influence  or  personal  favor;  and  among  the 
first  major-generals  appointed  by  Mr.  Lincoln  we  find  two — 


264  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

Messrs.  Banks  and  Butler — who  are  the  two  types  of  the  class  then 
styled  political  generals  :  Banks,  a  former  workingman  of  Massa- 
chusetts, who  through  his  intelligence  had  attained  the  highest 
civil  positions,  of  a  loyal  character  and  universally  esteemed,  but 
totally  ignorant  of  military  matters — who,  although  fully  aware 
of  this  fact,  was  nevertheless  anxious  to  obtain  a  command, 
aggravating  his  first  error  in  action  by  mistrust  of  himself  and 
untoward  hesitations,  and  who  did  not  always  succeed  in  staving 
off,  by  his  great  personal  courage,  the  disastrous  results  of  enter- 
prises he  had  imprudently  undertaken ;  Butler,  a  shrewd  lawyer, 
a  bold  politician,  without  scruples,  who  had  rendered  a  great  ser- 
vice to  his  country  by  taking  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of 
occupying  Baltimore,  but  who  was  afterwards  to  injure  his  caiLse 
by  resorting  to  unnecessary  severities  in  New  Orleans,  found 
himself,  by  a  singular  coincidence,  chief  in  command  at  Big 
Bethel  and  at  the  first  attack  on  Fort  Fisher,  and  was  thus  both 
the  first  and  the  last  general  beaten  by  the  Confederates.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  names  of  Grant,  Sherman,  Meade,  Kear- 
ny, Hooker,  Slocum,  and  Thomas,  which  were  among  the  first 
promotions,  show  that  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  from  the  outset  how 
to  select  men  worthy  of  his  entire  confidence. 

The  personal  aides-de-camp  of  the  generals  in  command,  from 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  to  that  of  colonel,  did  not  appertain  to  any 
contingent ;  they  received  their  rank  directly  from  the  President, 
without  any  reference  to  the  sanction  of  the  Senate;  but  these 
grades,  whether  conferred  on  persons  belonging  to  the  regular 
army  or  to  the  volunteer  staff,  according  as  the  general  himself 
might  belong  to  either  of  these  corps,  were  merely  temporary, 
and  expired,  by  limitation,  with  the  command  of  the  general  to 
whom  they  were  attached. 

In  the  staffs  of  the  armies  in  the  field  the  chiefs  of  the  different 
services  were  regular  officers,  invested  with  a  rank  commensurate 
with  the  importance  of  their  functions.  Thus,  at  the  general 
head-quarters  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  or  of  the  armies  of 
the  West  the  chiefs  of  cavalry,  of  artillery,  of  engineers,  of  topo- 
graphical engineers,  and  in  the  administrative  departments  the  as- 
sistant adjutant-general  and  the  quartermaster-general,  ranked  as 
brigadier-generals ;  others — such  as  the  cliief  of  ordnance,  the  com- 


PREPARATION  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  265 

missary  of  subsistence,  and  the  inspector-general — held  the  inferior 
and  temporary  rank  appertaining  to  the  title  of  aides-de-camp. 

All  the  administrative  branches  of  the  service  were  reinforced, 
both  in  the  war  department  and  in  the  armies  in  the  field,  by 
large  promotions  of  officers  appointed  by  the  President,  like  the 
generals  of  volunteers,  to  serve  during  the  war.  But,  notwith- 
standing their  number,  the  personnel  of  all  these  corps,  like  that 
of  the  staffs,  was  always  found  insufficient  for  the  task  imposed 
upon  it  by  the  necessity  of  providing  for  the  support  and  man- 
agement of  an  army  of  500,000  men,  which  at  the  end  of  the  war 
was  to  number  nearly  1,000,000 ;  most  of  these  officers,  besides, 
were  utterly  unaccustomed  to  the  duties  confided  to  them.  A 
thousand  examples  might  be  cited  of  difficulties  which  their 
inexperience,  aggravating  that  of  the  soldiers  and  officers  of  the 
line,  threw  in  the  way  of  the  organization  of  the  armies,  their  arma- 
ment, their  outfits,  and  even  their  subsistence  in  their  canton- 
ments. Thus,  for  instance,  a  regiment  recently  encamped  received 
its  rations  in  flour,  and  for  want  of  cooking  utensils  found  itself,  in 
fact,  without  food,  whilst  biscuits  were  distributed  to  its  neighbor, 
which,  being  provided  with  portable  ovens,  might  have  contributed 
through  them  to  relieve  the  common  wants  to  a  considerable 
extent.  The  variety  of  firearms  was  so  great  that  the  cartridges 
first  distributed  scarcely  ever  suited  the  calibre  of  the  muskets. 
It  required  months  of  assiduous  labor  to  introduce  order  and 
method  in  this  vast  administrative  machinery.  There  was  con- 
stantly occasion  to  regret  the  absence  of  a  general  staff,  such  as 
is  to  be  found  in  European  armies,  serving  as  a  direct  medium 
between  the  chief  and  all  the  subordinate  agents  placed  under  his 
conmiand,  and  enabling  him  to  enforce  the  execution  of  his  wishes 
at  all  times. 

When  General  McClellan  commanded  an  army  of  150,000 
men,  he  had  only  about  him,  besides  four  topographical  engineers 
especially  detailed  to  study  the  ground,  concerning  which  no 
map  gave  any  precise  information,  eight  aides-de-camp  to  carr/ 
his  orders,  to  ascertain  the  position  of  the  several  army  corps,  to 
accompany  important  reconnoissances,  to  convey  directions  to  a 
general  on  the  day  of  battle,  and  to  receive  despatches  during  the 
night  at  general  head-quarters  and  during  the  day,  the  generals, 


266  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

civil  functionaries,  bearers  of  flags  of  truce  from  the  enemy,  and, 
finally,  to  question  the  inhabitants  or  prisoners  of  importance 
from  whom  information  might  be  obtained. 

An  exception  should  be  made  in  favor  of  the  medical  branch 
of  the  service ;  for,  if  officers  were  scarce,  physicians  before  the 
war  were  numerous,  America  being  the  country  which,  in  propor- 
tion to  her  population,  possesses  the  greatest  number  of  them. 
The  spirit  of  personal  independence  and  the  absence  of  all  con- 
trol on  the  part  of  the  state,  so  far  from  being  detrimental  to  the 
cause  of  medical  science  in  the  New  AVorld,  has  given  it  an  ex- 
traordinary impulse;  and  the  Americans  quote  with  just  pride, 
besides  such  names  as  those  of  Jackson  and  Mott,  the  reports  of 
their  principal  surgeons  relative  to  the  innumerable  experiments 
which  the  war  enabled  them  to  make.  The  progress  of  medical 
science  resulting  from  these  reports  may  perhaps  aflPord  some  com- 
pensation to  humanity  for  all  the  blood  shed  during  that  cruel 
war.  It  may  be  said  that  there  was  no  branch  of  the  service 
in  the  whole  army,  unless  it  be  that  of  the  chaplains,  which  un- 
derstood and  performed  its  duties  so  well  as  the  regimental  sur- 
geons— all  physicians  by  profession. 

The  composition  of  the  personnel  of  an  army,  notwithstanding 
its  importance,  is  not,  however,  either  the  first  element  of  mili- 
tary organizations  or  the  most  difficult  to  create :  the  most  im- 
portant is  discipline,  that  moral  force  without  which  no  army  can 
exist.  When  it  is  established  by  tradition  the  new-comers  sub- 
mit to  it  without  difficulty.  But  the  Federal  government  had 
not  only  to  introduce  it  among  a  vast  multitude  of  men,  all 
equally  strangers  to  its  severe  requirements,  but  it  did  not  possess 
any  really  effective  means  to  enforce  respect  for  it.  In  the  first 
place,  if  the  government  had  the  right  to  deprive  officers  of  their 
rank,  it  had  not  the  power  to  replace  them.  It  could  only  punish 
regimental  officers  by  dismissing  them,  and  had  no  rewards  to 
•^ffer  them.  The  States,  fearing  lest  the  Federal  government 
should  possess  too  much  influence,  had,  in  refusing  the  right  of 
appointment  and  promotion,  deprived  it  of  the  best  guarantee 
of  good  service. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  being  no  rule  in  force  regulating  the 
promotion    of    officers   appointed   by   the   States   and   enrolled 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  267 

In  the  service  of  the  Federal  government,  or  in  the  general  staff 
of  the  army  of  volunteers,  and  the  latter  being  considered  as  a 
merely  temporary  organization,  discipline  could  not  find  that  sup- 
port which  the  respect  inspired  by  a  strongly  constituted  hierarchy 
obtained  for  it  in  permanent  armies. 

We  have  already  stated  how  the  ranks  were  distributed  among 
those  who  had  mostly  contributed  to  the  recruiting  of  regiments. 
But  among  those  who  thus  attained  the  summit  of  the  ladder  at 
the  outset  there  were  some  who  voluntarily  descended  it  just  as 
quickly.  More  than  one  subaltern  officer  of  the  regular  army, 
placed  in  command  of  a  regiment  with  the  rank  of  colonel,  be- 
came disgusted  with  that  position  and  went  to  resume  a  modest 
place  in  his  old  company.  There  were  others  who,  having  held 
no  previous  rank  in  the  standing  army,  had  to  undergo  even 
greater  trials;  and  we  might  mention  a  few  instances  of  officers 
who,  after  leaving  one  regiment  in  order  to  assume  the  position 
of  colonel  in  another,  found  themselves  reduced  to  the  ranks  by 
the  disbanding  of  the  latter,  and  returned  to  take  their  places  as 
common  soldiers  in  their  former  regiment. 

But  the  most  serious  obstacle  against  the  maintenance  of  disci- 
pline was  to  be  found  in  the  law  which,  by  an  inexcusable  anom- 
aly in  a  democratic  country,  conferred  upon  the  chiefs  a  discre- 
tionary authority  over  the  soldiers  for  the  punishment  of  simple 
military  misdemeanors,  and  did  not  permit  them  to  exercise  the 
same  in  regard  to  officers.  The  latter  had  to  be  tried  by  court- 
martial  for  the  slightest  infringement  of  military  rules,  and  they 
could  not  be  subject  to  two  days'  confinement  without  a  formal 
sentence.  In  consequence  of  this  system,  borrowed  from  the 
regular  army,  upon  which  it  had  been  grafted  in  days  when  the 
execu  ive  power  was  mistrusted,  the  trial,  the  prosecution  and 
the  defence — in  short,  all  the  guarantees  required  by  law  in 
cases  of  grave  offences — became  a  parody  to  secure  immunity 
for  the  officers  accused  of  insubordination  towards  their  su- 
periors. All  these  difficulties,  however,  did  not  discourage  those 
who  had  undertaken  the  organization  of  the  Federal  armies,  and 
they  succeeded  at  last  in  introducing  order  and  discipline  among 
them. 

The  rules  established  for  determining  the  right  to  a  command 


268  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA 

being  as  precise  and  as  scrupulously  observed  in  America  as  in 
Europe,  served  as  a  corrective  to  the  accidents  which  converted 
the  superior  officer  of  to-day  into  a  subordinate  of  to-morrow. 
These  rules  assigned  the  command  among  t.fficers  of  the  same 
grade  to  the  senior  of  those  who  held  their  commissions  from 
the  President,  whether  they  belonged  to  the  regular  army  or  to 
the  volunteer  staff,  in  preference  to  those  who  had  been  appointed 
by  the  governors  of  States,  in  special  contingents. 

With  regard  to  the  law  instituting  courts-martial  to  pronounce 
upon  the  slightest  breaches  of  discipline,  it  met  with  the  fate  of 
all  laws  that  are  too  bad  to  be  applied ;  a  thousand  ways  were 
found  to  evade  it.  The  officer  who  neglected  his  duty  was  placed 
under  arrest,  as  if  to  prepare  for  trial,  and  at  the  end  of  eight 
days  he  was  released  and  told  that  the  matter  should  not  be 
pursued  any  further — a  decision  in  which  he  naturally  hastened 
to  acquiesce.  Or  in  more  serious  cases  he  was  to  be  put  in  arrest 
for  three  or  four  weeks  within  his  tent,  and  warned  that  if  he 
made  any  complaints  against  such  illegal  proceeding  the  Presi- 
dent would  be  requested  to  dismiss  him. 

Being  thus  relieved  from  matters  of  which  they  should  never 
have  taken  cognizance,  the  courts-martial  had  yet  another  laborious 
duty  to  perform.  Their  functions  were  of  a  double  character, 
according  to  the  gravity  of  the  charges  brought  before  them.  As 
simple  courts  they  recommended  the  President  to  suspend  or 
dismiss  the  party  accused.  As  military  tribunals,  invested  by  the 
Constitution  itself  with  judiciary  power  to  try  special  cases,  they 
imposed  pecuniary  fines  and  corporal  penalties  extending  even  to 
death,  such  sentences  being  subject  to  the  revision  of  the  Presi- 
dent. In  these  courts-martial  the  volunteers  were  tried  by  vol- 
unteers, the  regulars  by  regulars ;  but  they  were  all  subject  to  the 
same  military  code,  the  Articles  of  War,  a  small  collection,  rather 
vague,  which,  like  nearly  all  Anglo-Saxon  laws,  leave  a  great  deal 
to  jurisprudence. 

The  establishment  of  examining  commissions  operated  largely 
in  favor  of  discipline,  and  raised  the  dignity  of  the  epaulette 
in  the  estimation  of  the  soldiers  by  purging  the  personnel  of 
the  list  of  officers.  It  was  impossible  to  confer  all  the  ranks 
upon  educated  officers,  as  there  were  very  few  such ;  but  all  the 


PEEPABATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  269 

others  could  be  divided  into  two  classes.  The  first,  who  were 
by  far  the  most  numerous,  being  conscious  of  their  deficiencies, 
desired  to  improve  themselves,  and  had  all  the  intelligence  neces- 
sary for  learning  their  profession  even  in  the  midst  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  war;  such  must  be  retained.  The  others,  as  pre- 
sumptuous as  they  were  incapable,  set  a  fatal  example  in  the 
positions  they  had  courted  only  to  gratify  their  cupidity  or 
vanity;  the  examining  commissions  were  directed  to  rid  the 
army  of  them.  They  were  instructed  to  subject  all  the  officers 
of  the  various  contingents  to  a  rigid  examination  before  they 
were  finally  accepted  by  the  President.  These  examinations  only 
took  place  several  months  after  those  contingents  had  been  formed 
into  divisions,  so  that  the  generals  who  had  them  under  their  re- 
spective commands  were  able  to  furnish  the  commissioners  with 
suggestions  in  regard  to  the  officers  about  to  be  examined,  which 
more  or  less  controlled  their  decisions. 

The  examiners  always  favored  those  who  were  known  to  be 
disposed  to  learn  their  profession,  but  those  convicted  of  down- 
right ignorance  had  no  mercy  shown  to  them.  During  the  early 
stages  of  the  war,  those  who  found  themselves  thus  deprived  of 
their  rank  begged  for  favor,  threw  themselves  at  the  feet  of  their 
judges ;  for,  apart  from  the  disgrace,  it  was  a  great  pecuniary  loss 
to  them.  They  were  told  in  reply  to  go  and  learn,  and  a  few 
rigorous  examples  determined  a  large  number  of  officers  to  avoid 
the  disgrace  of  failure  at  a  public  examination  in  the  presence 
of  their  comrades  and  their  subordinates  by  a  prompt  resignation. 
This  summary  mode  of  proceeding  may  have  caused  some  in- 
justice, but  the  most  cruel  injustice  would  have  been  to  expose 
the  lives  of  soldiers  by  allowing  the  army  to  be  filled  with  men 
incapable  of  commanding. 

It  was  thus  that  discipline  and  respect  for  authority  began  to 
take  root  in  the  army,  and  their  salutary  influence  was  soon  felt, 
although  the  observer,  judging  only  from  appearances,  might  net 
yet  have  been  able  to  realize  the  fact.  Indeed,  what  may  be 
called  the  hierarchical  sentiment  has  never  existed  in  the  United 
States,  where  the  uncertain  rounds  of  the  social  ladder  offer  to 
no  one  a  pedestal  so  high  but  that  a  man  may  descend  from  it 
without  ruin,  Avhere  the  citizen  who  has  deserved  well   of  his 


270  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

country  in  a  high  position  does  not  think  it  derogatorj  to  his 
dignity  to  serve  that  country  in  a  more  modest  capacity.  Even 
in  the  regular  army  the  rank  which,  acquired  with  difficulty,  had 
been  the  aim  and  the  reward  of  a  whole  career  has  never  elicited 
the  same  respect  as  amongst  us.  The  power  it  confers,  the 
obedience  it  ought  to  secure  within  the  limits  of  military  com- 
mand, lost  nothing  thereby,  but  it  did  not  of  itself  create  those 
social  distinctions  which  are  carefully  kept  up  elsewhere,  even 
by  persons  occupying  inferior  positions  with  the  secret  hope  of 
being  able  at  some  future  day  to  take  the  places  of  their  supe- 
riors and  to  receive  the  same  marks  of  respect.  In  the  volunteer 
army,  for  stronger  reasons,  no  prestige  could  attach  to  the  mere 
epaulette,  for  the  soldier  was  the  more  able  to  criticise  the  ignor- 
ance of  his  immediate  chiefs  because  he  almost  always  belonged 
to  the  same  county  or  village  and  had  long  known  them  person- 
ally. The  absence  of  that  moral  authority  which  is  based  upon 
length  of  service  and  superior  experience  was  still  more  unfor- 
tunate among  the  non-commissioned  officers,  to  whom  it  was  even 
more  indispensable  in  order  to  enforce  obedience  from  the  soldier. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  intelligence  and  education  which 
lifted  most  of  the  privates  to  a  level  with  their  superiors  inspired 
them  with  a  natural  respect  for  those  among  their  chiefs  in  Avhom 
they  recognized  the  necessary  qualities  for  command,  and  induced 
them  to  accept,  without  a  murmur,  the  obligations  and  restraints 
of  military  life  when  they  were  made  to  understand  the  necessity. 
Leaving  the  entire  monopoly  of  insubordination  to  a  few  regi- 
ments, mostly  composed  of  European  adventurers,  they  exhibited 
none  of  that  turbulence  which  is  frequently  associated  with  the 
name  of  volunteers.  A  few  words  of  caution  were  sufficient  to 
remind  them  that,  having  once  taken  the  oath,  there  were  no  longer 
amateurs  in  the  ranks  of  the  army. 

During  the  whole  period  of  organization  in  the  army  of  the 
Potomac,  General  McClellan  had  but  once  an  occasion  to  rebuke 
any  attempt  to  resist  his  authority  This  occurred  shortly  after 
the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  the  memories  of  which  had  not  yet  been 
effaced.  The  soldiers  of  a  volunteer  regiment,  considering  them- 
selves aggrieved  in  a  matter  affecting  their  pay  and  term  of 
enlistment,  refused  to  obey  their  officers.     Their  camp,  situated 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  271 

on  one  of  the  squares  of  Washington,"  was  immediately  sin- 
rounded  by  a  detachment  of  regular  troops,  infantry  and  artil- 
lery, and  this  display  of  force  sufficed  to  bring  them  to  obedience. 
In  granting  them  pardon  the  general-in-chief  took  away  their 
flag,  with  the  promise  to  return  it  to  them  on  the  field  of  battle ; 
and  the  zeal  which  these  troops  displayed  to  atone  for  their  error 
soon  made  them  one  of  the  best  regiments  in  the  army. 

The  acts  of  severity  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  disci- 
pline were  generally  approved  by  public  opinion,  which  was  deter- 
mined to  sustain  the  authority  of  the  chiefs  from  whom  they 
expected  the  salvation  of  the  country.  But  it  was  repugnant  to 
the  American  people  to  shed,  even  by  judicial  process,  the  blood 
of  a  guilty  man  when  that  of  a  victim  did  not  cry  for  vengeance ; 
and  to  render  possible  the  execution  of  deserters  to  the  enemy  it 
was  necessar}'^  to  bring  forward  material  proof  of  the  great  dan- 
ger to  which  the  army  was  exposed  if  capital  punishment,  that 
indispensable  penalty  of  the  military  code,  was  not  inflicted  upon 
traitors.  The  first  execution  took  place  in  December,  1861 ;  it 
was  an  event  in  the  Federal  army. 

The  best  example  that  can  be  given  of  the  docility  M'ith  which 
the  volunteers  submitted  to  all  the  regulations,  the  necessity  or 
advantages  of  which  they  understood,  is  to  be  found  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  absolute  prohibition  of  fermented  liquors  was 
accepted  by  them.  In  a  country  where  the  use  of  ardent  spirits 
is  so  universal,  where  the  bar-room  or  drinking-shop  plays  so 
great  a  part,  so  severe  a  restriction  could  not  have  been  imposed 
upon  the  soldiers  if  nearly  all  of  them  had  not  cheerfully  recog- 
nized its  necessity  with  a  firmness  of  purpose  more  meritorious 
than  many  acts  of  heroism.  The  commissaries  of  subsistence 
alone  had  in  store  a  detestable  brandy  distilled  from  grain,  which 
they  distributed  parsimoniously  to  the  sick  and  to  the  soldiers 
employed  at  hard  labor,  or  to  those  encamped  in  malarious  local- 
ities. It  is  true  that  during  the  early  stages  of  the  war  the  low 
drinking-shops  of  Washington  and  St.  Louis  were  crowded  with 
soldiers  whose  trembling  hands  brandished  the  terrible  boAvie- 
knife,  or  who  staggered  to  the  sidewalk  to  end  their  quarrels  with 
the  revolver.  But  it  may  be  asserted  that  no  drunken  man  was 
ever  seen  in  camp ;  and  even  in  the  cities  these  disorders  ceased  as 


272  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

soon  as  the  military  police,  better  organized,  prevented  soldiers 
from  leaving  their  tents  to  visit  the  bar-rooms.  The  sutlers, 
licensed  smugglers,  were  subjected  to  the  supervision  of  the  pro- 
vost-marshal, and  no  strong  liquor  was  tolerated  at  their  stores. 
It  was  the  Europeans  who  most  strongly  resisted  this  regulation — 
the  Germans  from  pure  loyalty  to  their  lager-hiov,  the  Southern- 
ers to  drink  in  secret  an  alcoholic  compound  which  in  America 
is  called  brandy  (whisky). 

The  personnel  of  staffs  and  administrative  departments  being 
once  organized  and  that  of  the  contingents  purified,  and  the  first 
principles  of  discipline  established  among  the  officers,  as  well  as 
among  the  soldiers,  the  great  task  "of  drilling  the  army  had  yet 
hardly  begun.  Indeed,  a  great  assemblage  of  men  resembles  a 
statue  of  clay,  unable  to  move  without  breaking  and  having  no 
vital  breath.  In  order  that  it  may  acquire  suppleness  and  agility 
the  recruits  must  go  through  a  series  of  exercises  and  evolutions 
equally  irksome  to  the  teachers  and  the  taught — first  singly,  then 
by  platoons,  by  battalions  next,  and  finally  by  brigades.  This 
task  was  the  more  difficult  in  the  American  army  because  instruc- 
tion was  as  necessary  for  the  officers  as  for  the  men,  and  because 
the  latter,  having  no  example  to  encourage  them,  did  not  under- 
stand the  utility  of  so  long  an  apprenticeship.  Their  intelligence, 
however,  which  rendered  them  submissive  to  the  voice  of  chiefs 
really  worthy  to  command  them,  soon  made  them  undertake  it 
with  ardor.  Full  of  confidence  in  themselves,  they  made  up  their 
minds,  not  that  it  was  useless  to  learn,  but  that  it  would  be  very 
easy  for  them  to  learn  anything  they  wished,  the  trade  of  war 
as  well  as  any  other ;  having  enlisted  voluntarily,  they  were  de- 
termined to  do  everything  in  their  power  to  become  good  soldiers 
capable  of  victory. 

They  wer.e,  therefore,  of  as  much  value  as  their  chiefs,  whose 
examples  exercised  an  all-powerful  influence  over  the  collective 
spirit,  if  we  may  use  such  an  expression,  which  animates  a  body 
of  troops.  A  rapid  change  took  place  in  those  regiments  in  which 
the  superior  officers  went  assiduously  to  work  and  began  by  learn- 
ing themselves  what  they  desired  to  teach  their  inferiors.  There 
were  three  of  these  superior  officers  to  every  regiment,  or  rather 
battalion,  whose  effective  force  numbered  from  eight  to  nine  hun- 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  273 

dred  men  at  the  utmost — one  colonel,  a  lieutenant-colonel,  and  a 
major.  This  number  would  have  been  excessive  in  a  standing 
army,  l)ut  at  a  time  when  it  was  necessary  to  organize  everything 
it  offered  great  advantages ;  for  there  were  many  chances  that 
among  these  three  officers  one  would  be  found  capable  of  assum- 
ing the  management  of  aifairs  in  the  regiment,  whatever  his  rank ; 
his  superiority  over  his  two  colleagues  very  soon  placed  the  di- 
rection of  affairs  in  his  hands.  Most  of  these  officers  applied 
themselves  with  zeal  to  the  novel  task  they  had  accepted.  Very 
often,  after  a  day  of  drill  and  manoeuvres,  when  the  soldier  was 
resting  without  care,  the  colonel  would  call  all  his  officers  together 
in  his  tent.  There,  by  the  light  of  an  unsteady  lamp,  he  would 
lecture  them  upon  certain  manoeuvres,  at  first  in  the  capacity  of 
teacher,  then  freely  discuss  with  them  sundry  points  in  tactics ; 
and  when  the  latter  had  retired,  he  would  still  continue  to  study, 
with  his  lieutenant-colonel  and  major,  the  French  regulations 
(infantry  tactics),  translated  by  Scott,  in  order  to  expound  them 
on  the  following  day. 

One  of  the  most  important  duties  in  the  organization  of  the 
army,  and  the  most  difficult  to  have  well  performed,  Avas  the 
management  of  regimental  accounts.  In  the  absence  of  an  ad- 
ministrative  staff  the  keeping  of  these  accounts  devolved  entirely 
upon  the  colonel  and  captains  of  companies.  For  those  who  had 
not  been  engaged  in  mercantile  affiiirs  it  was  a  labyrinth  from 
which  they  could  not  extricate  themselves  without  close  applica- 
tion ;  and  one  should  have  inspected  some  of  the  American  regi- 
ments in  person  in  order  to  form  an  idea  of  the  worriments  en- 
tailed upon  thousands  of  officers  by  the  necessity  of  keeping  four 
official  account-books  in  order — the  descriptive-book,  the  morning- 
return-book,  the  account-book,  and  the  order-book. 

In  all  the  details  we  have  given  concerning  the  formation  and 
organization  of  volunteer  regiments  we  have  said  nothing  of  the 
measures  taken  to  fill  the  gaps  occasioned  by  sickness  and  the 
bullets  of  the  enemy.  The  fact  is  that  such  measures  had  not 
been  deemed  necessary  at  the  outset  of  a  war  which  it  was  thought 
would  only  last  ninety  days.  It  was  soon  found  that  when  a  regi- 
ment had  once  set  out  to  join  the  army,  nobody  any  longer  ap- 
plied to  the  recruiting  depots ;  the  good  places  had  been  taken ; 
Vol.  I.— 18 


274  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  men  of  influence  who  had  contributed  to  the  formation  of  the 
regiments  were  in  camp;  and  if  others  appealed  in  their  turn  to 
the  public,  it  was  in  behalf  of  new  regiments.  Under  such  a 
system  it  was  impossible  to  establish  depots;  the  numerical 
strength  of  the  regiments  was  greatly  diminished  during  their 
stay  in  camps,  and  it  only  required  a  single  battle  or  a  few  nights 
passed  in  a  malarious  locality  to  reduce  them  to  skeletons.  In 
the  mean  while,  the  new  levies  which  swelled  the  ranks  of  the 
armies  brought  no  direct  reinforcement  to  those  regiments.  In 
order  to  procure  a  rapid  supply  of  men  it  was  necessary  constantly 
to  create  new  regiments.  These  regiments  brought  with  them  all 
the  inexperience  which  had  cost  so  dear  to  their  predecessors, 
without  deriving  any  profit  from  the  experience  acquired  by  the 
latter,  while  the  number  of  officers  and  soldiers  belonging  to  the 
old  regiments,  whose  example  and  teachings  might  have  been 
so  useful  to  the  new  comers  if  they  had  been  thrown  together 
under  the  same  colonels,  was  too  much  reduced  to  play  an  im- 
portant, part  unaided  in  the  field. 

It  may  be  that  in  trying  to  remedy  this  evil  the  source  itself 
had  been  exhausted  from  which  the  ranks  of  the  Federal  armies 
had  been  filled  when  they  were  so  fearfully  decimated.  But  this 
system  was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  their  weakness,  and  its 
consequences  became  more  and  more  injurious  until  the  day  when, 
the  conscrption  law  having  at  last  given  the  Federal  government 
the  means  for  securing  enlistments,  the  formation  of  new  regi- 
ments was  prohibited,  and  General  Grant  infused  new  vigor  into 
the  army  by  the  consolidation  of  two  or  three  regiments  into  one. 

Such  was  the  general  condition  of  affairs  in  the  midst  of  which 
the  organization  of  the  Federal  armies  was  being  effected.  Each 
branch  of  the  service  was  naturally  organized  and  perfected 
with  more  or  less  rapidity  according  to  the  particular  difficulties 
that  this  labor  expects  to  encounter. 

In  the  infantry  the  soldiers  were  vigorous,  but  did  not  under- 
stand how  to  husband  their  strength  for  a  long  march.  They  did 
not  know  how  to  buckle  on  their  knapsacks ;  they  clumsily  car- 
ried very  light  weights  on  their  shoulders ;  they  had  no  idea  how 
to  take  care  of  their  arms.  Most  of  them  were  bad  marksmen 
when  they  enlisted,  and  the  first  muskets  which  were  put  in  their 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  275 

hands  were  so  defective  that  they  could  not  at  first  practice  at  a 
target.  The  infantry  regiments,  modelled  upon  those  of  the  regu- 
lar army,  were  composed  of  ten  companies,  each  having  a  nominal 
strength  of  ninety-six  men,  one  captain,  one  first  lieutenant,  and 
one  second  lieutenant.  It  was  upon  these  ten  companies,  formed  in 
two  ranks,  that  all  the  manoeuvres  by  battalion  were  based.  The 
artillery  branch  of  the  service  was  especially  in  favor  with  the 
American  volunteers.  It  suited  their  taste  for  the  mechanical 
arts,  and  they  felt,  moreover,  like  all  new  soldiers,  a  certain  degree 
of  confidence  on  finding  themselves  near  those  powerful  weapons, 
with  a  longer  range  than  musketry.  In  short,  the  regular  artil- 
lery, having  always  been  very  numerous,  supplied  the  volunteers 
with  a  proportionally  larger  number  of  able  instructors  than  any 
other  arm.  Consequently,  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  General 
McClellan  was  able  to  supply  each  division  with  a  regular  battery 
destined  to  serve  as  a  model  for  the  others,  and  the  captain  of 
which  exercised  a  superior  command  over  the  latter.  We  shall 
speak  presently  of  the  material  they  had  in  their  hands. 

The  volunteer  artillery,  furnished  by  the  several  States,  was 
only  organized  into  batteries,  having  no  officer  above  the  rank  of 
captain.  The  superior  officers  of  that  arm  of  the  service  all  be- 
longed to  the  regular  army,  or  had  received  from  the  President  a 
temporary  rank,  with  the  title  of  aides-de-camp,  on  the  staif  of 
the  general  commanding  the  corps  to  which  they  were  attached. 

The  cavalry  was  slower  in  acquiring  the  knowledge  which  alone 
could  render  it  really  useful.  It  required  the  experience  of  sev- 
eral campaigns  to  enable  them  to  learn  fully  the  special  part 
which  the  nature  of  the  country  imposed  upon  them,  and  to  exer- 
cise a  serious  influence  upon  the  military  operations.  The  strength 
of  the  volunteer  regiments  of  cavalry  varied  according  to  the 
States  which  furnished  them.  Some  of  them,  following  the  ex- 
ample of  the  new  regular  regiments,  numbered  as  many  as  twelve 
hundred  horses,  and  the  three  majors  had  each  a  command  of  four 
squadrons  or  companies.  Most  of  them,  however,  formed  upon 
the  old  model,  were  composed  of  ten  companies,  each  about  one 
hundred  strong,  without  any  intermediate  field-officer  between  the 
colonel  and  the  captains.  These  regiments,  of  one  thousand  horses 
each,  presented  a  front  too  extended  for  the  word  of  command, 


276  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

thereby  increasing  the  difficulties  of  drill.  These  difficulties  were 
great  and  numerous.  The  men  arrived  on  foot ;  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  Federal  government  to  equip  and  mount  them.  The  duties 
of  horsemen  were  new  to  them.  The  North  American  had  lost 
some  of  the  good  traditions  of  horsemanship  pertaining  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  In  the  eastern  part  of  the  Union  the  saddle- 
horse  has  been  supplanted  by  the  light  vehicle  called  "  buggy ;" 
in  the  West  the  farmer  is  more  of  a  husbandman  than  a  stock- 
raiser  ;  and  the  pioneer  of  the  border  States  relies  only  upon  his 
rifle  to  contend  with  mounted  Indians.  Nevertheless,  these  regi- 
ments were  generally  very  popular  among  the  volunteers.  For- 
getting that  the  mounted  man  has  to  be  the  slave  of  his  horse, 
they  thought  that  because  they  could  perform  a  day's  march  on 
horseback  less  labor  would  be  required.  The  number  of  cavalry 
regiments  increased  to  such  a  degree  that,  in  order  to  curtail  the 
useless  expense  imposed  upon  the  treasury,  it  was  found  necessary 
to  leave  a  portion  of  the  men  dismounted.  We  shall  show  here- 
after, when  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  of  the  maUriel  of  war, 
how  fearfully  horses  were  used  up  by  the  cavalry  regiments  dur- 
ing the  early  stages  of  the  war.  Owing  to  ignorance  of  the  carfe 
necessary  to  preserve  the  animals,  the  soldiers  found  themselves 
dismounted  after  a  few  days'  campaign,  and  even  obliged  to  go 
into  cantonments.  This  was  the  principal  cause  of  the  protracted 
inefficiency  of  the  Federal  cavalry.  Besides,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  regiments  commanded  by  an  experienced  colonel  and 
those  whose  chiefs  were  ignorant  of  their  profession  was,  at  first, 
even  greater  in  the  cavalry  than  in  the  infantry ;  and  officers  like 
Averell,  Gregg,  Buford,  and  Farnsworth  in  the  army  of  the  Poto- 
mac, and  Sheridan,  Kautz,  and  Kilpatrick  in  the  West,  who  sub- 
sequently achieved  so  much  distinction,  became  at  first  noted  for 
the  excellent  condition  of  the  cavalry  troops  placed  under  their 
respective  commands. 

The  division  formation  of  these  various  arms  was  effected  in  a 
nearly  uniform  manner.  In  the  army  of  the  Potomac  four  regi- 
ments, or  battalions,  constituted  a  brigade,  with  an  effective  force 
of  from  3200  to  3500  men  on  taking  the  field.  A  division  was 
composed  of  three  brigades  of  infantry,  one  regiment  of  cavalry, 
and  four  batteries  of  artillery,  one  of  which  belonged   to  the 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  277 

regular  service.  The  surplus  of  cavalry  and  artillery  remained 
separate. 

The  special  services  found  great  resource  in  the  aptitude  of  the 
American  to  pass  from  one  trade  to  another.  This  is  a  great  and 
valuable  quality  which  the  practice  of  true  liberty  engenders  by 
protecting  the  individual  against  excesses  in  the  pursuit  of  special- 
ties which  confine  the  faculties  of  man  within  a  narrow  prison. 

The  part  of  siege  artillery  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac  was  en- 
trusted to  a  Connecticut  regiment  not  a  soldier  or  officer  of  which, 
except  the  colonel,  had  ever  before  handled  a  cannon.  They 
learned  their  new  duties,  escorted  that  heavy  artillery  tln-oughout 
all  tlie  marches  of  the  army,  and  served  it  with  great  ability  dur- 
ing the  most  distressing  retreats,  while  more  than  once,  when  their 
pieces  were  in  safety  and  the  din  of  battle  was  heard  in  the  dis- 
tance, they  threw  aside  rammer  and  sponge  to  take  part  in  the  con- 
flict with  muskets  as  foot-soldiers. 

In  order  to  organize  the  engineer  service  it  was  also  found 
necessary  to  appeal  to  the  ardor  of  volunteers  who  had  no  military 
instruction.  The  officers  of  that  arm  scattered  among  the  various 
corps  were  not  sufficiently  numerous  to  direct  in  person  all  the 
works  required  by  the  military  operations,  nor  to  instruct  the  sol- 
diers employed  in  them.  But  there  were  found,  on  the  one  hand, 
useful  auxiliaries  among  civil  engineers,  a  large  and  educated  class, 
composed  of  practical  men  accustomed  to  struggle  with  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  virgin  soil  of  America ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  rapid 
course  of  special  instruction  imparted  to  a  few  regiments  sufficed  to 
qualify  them  for  the  most  important  works  of  engineering  art,  while 
the  rougher  work  was  entrusted  indiscriminately  to  the  various 
regiments  of  volunteers,  among  whom  some  skilful  artisans  were 
always  sure  to  be  found.  The  construction  of  these  works  was 
never  entirely  new  to  them.  Even  the  most  populous  States, 
which  still  possessed  vast  forests,  all  furnished  a  considerable 
contingent  of  woodmen  or  lumbermen  and  pioneers,  inured  from 
their  infancy  to  the  use  of  the  axe,  the  pick,  and  the  spade,  and 
one  regiment  a  thousand  strong  might  be  seen  felling  more  than 
eighty  acres  {qnarantes  hectares)  of  tall  forests  in  a  single  day. 

Sometimes  an  unfair  advantage  was  taken  of  the  aptitude  of  the 
volunteers  for  this  kind  of  work.     They  had  scarcely  been  mus- 


278  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

tered  into  service  when  a  great  portion  of  the  time  which  should 
have  been  devoted  to  drilling  was  employed  in  the  formation 
of  artistically  constructed  abattis  and  in  making  large  en- 
trenched camps  in  all  the  positions  which  it  was  suspected  the 
enemy  intended  to  attack  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington,  Louis- 
ville, Paducah,  and  St.  Louis.  These  works,  at  first,  were  only 
simple  breastworks  (ipaulements),  formed  of  trunks  of  trees  and 
earth,  on  the  skirts  of  clearings  which  had  been  made  for  the  pur- 
pose of  freeing  the  approaches  of  the  positions  to  be  defended,  and 
were  protected  by  abattis  of  from  ten  to  forty  feet  in  thickness, 
where  all  the  branches,  skilfully  turned  outward,  sharpened  at  the 
points,  and  hardened  by  fire,  were  inextricably  intertwined.  It  was 
soon  rendered  necessary  to  construct  improved  redoubts  for  field 
artillery  on  the  strongest  positions  along  the  line ;  the  very  nature 
of  the  ground  rendered  it  necessary  to  multiply  their  number,  and 
in  the  end  they  became  veritable  citadels,  intended  for  guns  of 
the  heaviest  calibre.  There  were  thus  erected  at  every  available 
point  on  the  large  Western  rivers,  especially  along  the  Mississippi, 
either  level  or  plunging  batteries,  intended  to  intercept  naviga- 
tion. When  these  works  constituted  regular  systems  of  defence, 
it  was  deemed  expedient  to  connect  them  by  means  of  causeways 
constructed  with  trunks  of  trees  placed  close  to  each  other,  such  as 
pioneers  build  in  marshy  forests,  and  which,  under  the  name  of 
corduroy  roads,  marked  the  passage  of  the  Federal  armies  through- 
out the  South.  Logs  of  the  same  length,  and  placed  crosswise 
alongside  of  each  other  over  the  miry  soil  of  the  forest,  constituted 
the  original  corduroy,  the  pieces  of  which,  having  become  disjointed 
by  the  passage  of  the  first  troops,  fatigue  the  foot-soldiers,  bruise 
the  horses,  and  jar  the  wagons,  but  an  entire  army  sometimes  suc- 
ceeded, nevertheless,  in  passing  thus  over  many  leagues  of  morass. 
In  roads  for  permanent  use  the  improved  corduroy  was  com|)Osed 
of  large  trunks  placed  lengthwise,  supporting  logs  laid  crosswise ; 
pieces  of  timber  of  smaller  diameter  filled  up  the  interstices  of 
these  cross-logs,  and  the  whole  was  covered  by  alternate  layers  of 
earth  and  branches. 

The  variety  and  simplicity  M'hich  characterize  the  mechanic 
arts  of  the  Americans  were  first  manifested  in  the  construction 
of  the  biido;es  thrown  over  the  innumerable  ravines  in  the  vicin- 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  279 

ity  of  Wasliingto  1,  forming  a  connection  between  all  the  army 
encampments.  The  piers  of  these  bridges  were  constructed  of 
unhewn  logs  placed  against  a  slope  and  laid  upon  each  other  hori- 
zontally in  cross  directions,  resembling  those  pyramids  of  three 
or  four  faces  which  may  be  seen  in  wood-yards.  They  supported 
a  platform  of  trestle-work  composed  of  the  same  materials,  and 
the  whole  presented  a  timber-work  of  the  greatest  solidity,  not- 
withstanding its  fragile  appearance.  Skilful  from  the  beginning 
in  this  kind  of  construction,  the  volunteers  continued  to  improve 
during  the  war — so  much  so  that  in  the  Georgia  campaign  we 
shall  see  Sherman's  soldiers  throw  over  the  Chattahoochee  a 
bridge  thirty  metres  high  and  two  hundred  and  ninety  long  in 
less  than  five  days.  In  the  army  of  the  Potomac  two  regiments 
were  detailed  for  this  kind  of  work,  and  the  bridge-equipage  was 
placed  in  their  hands ;  they  combined  the  duties  of  pontoniers 
with  those  of  sappers.  They  commenced  operations  in  the  former 
capacity  in  the  beginning  of  1862  ;  and  in  a  single  day  they  built 
a  bridge  across  the  Potomac  at  Harper's  Ferry  in  spite  of  the 
obstacles  presented  by  a  rapid  current,  a  water-depth  of  seven 
metres,  and  the  width  of  the  river,  which  is  more  than  three  hun- 
dred metres.  Three  years  and  a  half  after,  at  the  passage  of  the 
James,  they  gave  evidence  of  the  progress  they  had  made  in  the 
art  of  throwing  with  great  rapidity  a  bridge  of  boats  over  a  large 
river.  In  six  hours  a  bridge  six  hundred  and  fifty  metres  long  was 
made  fast  in  the  river  in  water  twenty-eight  metres  deep,  which 
sustained  without  accident  the  passage  of  an  army  of  more  than 
100,000  men,  6000  wagons,  and  3000  head  of  cattle. 

The  large  number  of  mechanics  found  among  the  volunteers 
was  on  more  than  one  occasion  the  means  of  repairing  and  run- 
ning the  locomotives  which  the  enemy  had  left  behind  him  after 
disabling  them,  until  a  special  corps  of  engineers  could  be  formed 
t»)  pur  the  military  railways  in  working  order.  This  corps,  as 
we  shall  see  presently,  rendered  the  greatest  service  by  introdu- 
cing a  methodical  system  in  the  management  of  railways  which 
doubled  their  usefulness. 

Among  all  the  applications  of  modern  science  in  the  interest 
of  wai",  the  most  valuable  was  the  military  telegraph,  which  was 
opportunely  introduced  to   supply  the  insufficiency  of  general 


280  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

staffs,  and  wns  the  most  active  aide-de-camp  to  the  American 
generals. 

As  soon  as  a  marching  army  had  gone  into  bivouac  the  tele- 
graphic wires  established  a  connection  between  all  the  general 
headquarters ;  the  tent  where  Morse's  battery  was  hastily  set  up 
became  the  rendezvous  of  all  who  under  any  pretext  whatever 
could  obtain  access  to  procure  the  latest  news.  It  is  stated  that 
some  newspaper  correspondents  found  means  to  possess  them- 
selves of  important  secrets  by  learning  to  distinguish  the  words 
through  the  clickings,  more  or  less  repeated,  of  the  instrument 
while  it  was  printing  its  lines  and  points  upon  a  strip  of  paper. 
A  corps  of  employes  was  organized  for  this  service,  selected  with 
care  and  sworn  to  secrecy,  for  upon  their  discretion  depended 
the  fate  of  the  armies.  In  the  army  of  the  Potomac  it  was 
placed  under  the  direction  of  Major  Eckert,  who  by  his  intelli- 
gence rendered  the  most  important  services. 

The  field-telegraph  was  composed  of  a  few  wagons  loaded  with 
wire  and  insulators,  which  were  set  up  during  the  march,  some- 
times upon  a  pole  picked  up  on  the  road,  sometimes  on  the  trees 
themselves  Avhich  bordered  it ;  and  the  general's  tent  was  hardly 
raised  when  the  operator  was  seen  to  make  his  appearance,  hold- 
ing the  extremity  of  that  wire,  more  precious  than  that  of  Ari- 
adne in  the  labyrinth  of  American  forests.  An  apparatus  still 
more  portable  was  used  for  following  the  troops  on  the  day  of 
battle.  This  was  a  drum,  carried  on  two  wheels,  around  which 
was  wound  a  very  slender  copper  wire  enveloped  in  gutta-percha. 
A  horse  attached  to  the  drum  unwound  the  wire,  which,  owing  to 
its  wrapper,  could  be  fastened  to  the  branches  of  a  tree,  trailed  on 
the  sTOund,  or  laid  at  the  bottom  of  a  stream.  A  wav-station 
was  established  wherever  the  drum  stopped,  even  in  the  centre 
of  the  battle-field,  and  placed  the  troops  engaged  in  the  conflict 
in  direct  communication  with  the  general-in-chief.  These  field- 
telegraphs,  established  at  the  rate  of  three  kilometres  per  hour, 
generally  extended  to  a  distance  of  from  eight  to  ten,  and  some- 
times even  to  thirty-two,  kilometres. 

A  single  example  will  show  the  importance  of  the  military 
telegraph.  Without  counting  the  lines  already  in  existence  of 
which  possession  was  taken,  the  employes  of  the  government  con- 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  281 

structed  five  thousand  two  hundred  kilometres  during  a  single 
year  of  the  Mar,  and  they  forwarded  nearly  one  million  eight 
hundred  thousand  despatches ;  and  sufferings  and  dangers  were 
not  spared  those  men  whose  merit  was  the  greater  in  that  it  was 
less  conspicuous. 

More  than  one  among  them,  shivering  with  fever  in  an  unheal- 
thy station,  lay  down  with  his  ear  against  the  instrument  to  write 
with  a  trembling  hand  under  dictation  some  important  despatches 
whose  secret  he  would  confide  to  no  one.  Many  paid  M'ith  their 
lives  for  their  boldness  in  setting  up  their  instruments  under, 
the  very  fire  of  the  enemy ;  and  one  fact  almost  incredible  bears 
testimony  to  the  dangers  to  which  they  were  thus  exposed.  Dur- 
ing the  siege  of  Charleston  the  wire  which  connected  the  be- 
sieging  batteries  ran  so  close  to  the  rifle-pits  of  the  Confed- 
erate skirmishers  that  it  was  frequently  cut  by  their  balls.  The 
telegraph  Avas,  however,  at  times  a  perfidious  messenger.  Bodies 
of  partisans  would  suddenly  take  possession  of  an  intermediate 
station  and  throw  the  Federal  staffs  into  confusion  by  sending 
false  despatches  destined  to  upset  their  plans.  One  day  the 
guerilla  ]\Iosbv,  having  performed  an  exploit  of  this  kind,  took 
an  impudent  advantage  of  it  to  send  to  the  office  of  the  Secretary 
of  War,  Mr.  Stanton,  a  despatch  full  of  insults  addressed  to  that 
high  functionary.  The  Confederates,  on  their  part,  charged  one 
of  their  employes  with  having  by  his  disloyalty  contributed  to 
the  loss  of  Fort  Donelson  by  delaying  instead  of  accelerating  the 
arrival  of  the  reinforcements  which  were  to  relieve  that  place. 
If  this  fact  has  not  been  positively  proved,  there  is  nothing 
improbable  in  it,  and  it  shows  that,  with  all  its  advantages,  the 
use  of  the  telegraph  in  war  is  not  without  its  dangers. 

In  the  American  armies  there  was  also  organized  an  aerial  tel- 
egraph by  means  of  flags  raised  upon  a  long  pole,  which  were 
waved  to  right  and  left  over  the  stations  in  sight  of  each  other. 
Sometimes  perched  on  the  top  of  a  tree,  sometimes  sitting  astride 
over  the  roof  of  a  house,  the  employes  of  the  signal  corps,  who 
performed  this  duty  with  untiring  patience,  transmitted  the  news 
to  the  general-in-chief  and  his  orders  to  his  subordinates.  The 
coolness  and  promptitude  with  which  they  performed  this  task 
was  often  of  great  service  to  the  armies  at  critical  moments. 


282  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Two  balloons  were  connected  with  the  army  of  the  Potomac ; 
and  during  the  long  inaction  which  its  organization  around  Wash- 
ington caused,  they  only  contributed  to  the  amusement  of  those 
who  w^ere  allowed  the  privilege  of  an  ascension.  When  the  army 
found  itself  in  presence  of  the  enemy,  the  latter  honored  the  bal- 
loons with  numerous  cannon-shots,  especially  during  the  siege  of 
Yorktown,  but  they  never  succeeded  in  hitting  them ;  and  the 
greatest  danger  that  ever  threatened  the  aeronaut  was  that  which 
he  incurred  in  the  beginning,  when,  as  he  made  his  first  ascensions 
.above  the  Federal  camps,  some  stupid  sentinel,  ignorant  whether 
the  aerial  voyager  was  friend  or  enemy,  would  be  sure  to  fire  at  the 
indiscreet  individual  who  thus  hovered  over  their  heads.  A  gas 
generator,  a  heavy  machine  composed  of  ovens,  retorts,  and  pipes, 
which  it  required  twenty  trucks  to  carry,  followed  the  army  at  a 
distance,  and  the  already  inflated  balloons,  which  a  whole  com- 
pany controlled  by  means  of  strong  ropes  and  strove  to  direct 
along  the  winding  roads  of  Virginia.  At  the  least  puff  of  wind 
each  of  these  monsters  would  give  a  sudden  jerk,  compelling  those 
who  held  them  captive  to  stand  on  tip-toe,  and  to  perform,  in  spite 
of  themselves,  some  of  the  strangest  evolutions.  Although  ex- 
pensive, difficult  of  transportation,  and  of  doubtful  service,  this 
instrument  was  not  without  its  usefulness,  especially  during  a 
siege,  when,  elevated  at  leisure,  it  could  communicate  the  most  val- 
uable information  concerning  the  enemy's  works.  Thus,  before 
Yorktown,  Mr.  Lowe,  the  operator,  who  carried  an  electric  ap- 
paratus in  the  car  and  communicated  by  means  of  a  wire  with 
the  Federal  batteries,  could  indicate  the  result  of  their  fire  and 
enable  them  to  correct  their  aim.  At  the  same  time  he  discerned 
the  position  of 'all  the  enemy's  pieces  with  a  precision  which  an 
inspection  after  the  evacuation  of  the  place  fully  confirmed. 
But  it  would  be  wrong  to  rely  upon  so  capricious  an  auxiliary ; 
for  on  the  day  of  battle,  when  its  assistance  is  needed  to  discover 
the  enemy's  reserves,  a  puff  of  wind  will  suffice  to  prevent  its  as- 
cent, and  the  aide-de-camp  sent  in  haste  to  make  in  that  elevated 
observatory  a  reconnaissance,  on  which  may  depend  the  fate  of  a 
day's  battle,  is  obliged  to  wait  in  vain  for  a  favorable  state  of  the 
atmosphere  to  render  an  ascension  possible. 

The  electric  and  aerial  telegraphs,  the  balloons,  and  other  en- 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  283 

giues  of  that  description  should  certainly  not  be  despised;  but 
they  are  fatal  boons  to  the  general  whom  they  keep  inside  of  his 
tent  at  a  moment  when  nothing  can  replace  the  coup-cVosil  of  the 
master  and  the  jDresence  of  the  chief  among  his  soldiers. 

In  speaking  of  the  organization  of  the  American  armies,  we 
cannot  omit  to  mention  a  few  of  the  distinctive  features  of  the 
vi.lunteers  who  composed  them. 

These  armies  differed  from  ours  in  the  large  number  of  mar- 
ried men  they  contained.  In  America  there  are  no  military  laws 
to  interfere  with  marriage,  and  the  American,  who  is  but  little 
addicted  to  domestic  habits  and  is  the  artificer  of  his  own  fortune, 
does  not  enter  into  those  calculations  concerning  family  expenses 
which  stifle  the  spirit  of  enterprise  in  a  nation,  and  eventually 
impoverish  its  population  both  morally  and  numerically.  The 
war  acted  as  a  stimulus  to  marriage — among  the  officers,  in  the 
hope  of  being  cared  for  by  female  hands  if  wounded ;  among  the 
soldiers,  because  the  States  had  assured  a  certain  indemnity  to 
their  wives  and  a  liberal  pension  to  their  widows. 

Excellent  workmen  wherever  there  was  any  engineering  work 
required,  the  volunteers  were  to  show  themselves  industrious  in 
mitigating  the  rigors  of  camp  and  bivouac,  as  they  had  learned  from 
infa"ncy  to  improvise  among  the  forests  light  shelters  or  solid 
dwellings.  From  the  first  day's  halt  the  tents  were  replaced  by 
roofs  made  of  the  boughs  of  trees,  generally  pitched  on  the  skirts 
of  a  wood  ;  for  experience  soon  demonstrated  how  unhealthy  it 
is  to  encamp  under  the  thick  foliage,  which  does  not  allow  the  air 
to  circulate  freely.  When  snow  and  ice  came  to  surprise  the  army 
of  the  Potomac  encamped  around  Washington,  the  soldiers  did 
not  wait  for  orders  to  go  into  winter  quarters  to  provide  against 
these  new  enemies — orders  which  a  general  never  issued,  except  to 
deceive  the  enemy  and  when  he  has  determined  to  break  up  the 
camp  suddenly.  As  soon  as  the  first  cold  weather  made  itself 
felt  through  the  tents  every  one  set  his  ingenuity  to  work  to  devise 
means  of  warmth.  Only  a  few  tents,  conical ly  shaped,  with  a  hole 
at  the  top,  like  Indian  huts,  admitted  the  introduction  of  cast-iron 
stoves.  In  tlie  others  they  constructed  a  hearth  of  hardened  clay 
or  of  wood  covered  with  mud ;  barrels  placed  one  on  the  top  of 
another  served  as  chimneys ;  an  excavation  running  the  length  of 


284  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  tent,  covered  over  with  large  stones  which  retained  the  heat 
and  communicated  with  a  fire  deeply  set  in  the  earth,  warmed  the 
whole  interior.  The  tents,  at  first  surrounded  with  boughs,  were 
raised  upon  a  wooden  foundation,  which  resulted  in  forming  real 
walls ;  the  canvas  which  had  done  service  for  roof  disappeared 
in  turn,  and  the  whole  gave  way  to  the  classic  log  hut,  with 
its  walls  of  unhewn  logs  and  its  floor  of  rammed  earth,  that 
rustic  edifice  which  designates  the  site  of  the  future  cities  of  the 
New  World  in  the  midst  of  the  virgin  forests.  The  soldiers  of  the 
two  armies  left  everywhere  where  they  passed  the  winter  entire 
villages  of  these  primitive  dwellings ;  but  these  villages,  not  the 
fruits  of  civilization,  but  of  war,  being  abandoned  as  suddenly 
as  they  had  been  constructed,  were  destined  to  disappear  rapidly 
without  being  replaced  by  either  brick  or  stone. 

"Vigor  and  skill  among  the  volunteers  did  not  exclude  instruc- 
tion. Active  citizens  in  their  respective  counties  and  States,  and 
identified  with  either  of  the  political  parties,  they  were  fully  ac- 
quainted with  public  affairs  and  could  not  dispense  with  news- 
papers. With  scarcely  any  exception,  they  had  all  received  that 
primary  education  which,  without  initiating  the  man  into  all  the 
discoveries  of  science,  teaches  him  to  make  use  of  his  intelligence, 
which  awakens  a  desire  for  knowledge,  and  which,  when  it  jper- 
vades  a  whole  population,  imparts  to  it  as  much  power  as  a  sim- 
ple unit  placed  before  any  number  of  zeros.  It  is  owing  to  this 
general  svstem  of  education  that  the  New  World  may  be  called  the 
country  of  progress,  and  that  its  institutions  are  founded  upon  the 
regular  and  conscientious  practice  of  universal  suffrage.  The 
New  England  States  are  entirely  exempt  from  those  twin  scourges 
inseparable  from  our  old  social  systems,  ignorance  and  pauj)er- 
ism.  The  illiterate  minority  of  the  army  was  almost  exclusively 
composed  of  European  emigrants. 

On  opening  the  knapsack  of  the  American  soldier  one  was 
almost  sure  to  find  in  it  a  few  books,  and  generally  a  Bible, 
which  he  read  in  the  evening  without  hiding  from  his  comrades. 
An  inkstand,  a  piece  of  blotting-paper,  some  envelopes  orna- 
mented with  monograms,  badges,  and  portraits  completed  the 
assortment.  He  made,  in  fact,  abundant  use  of  the  liberality  of 
the  government,  which  transported  all  his  letters  postage-free. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  285 

A  large  carpet-bag,  hung  up  against  the  tent  of  the  adjutant  of 
each  regiment,  served  as  a  letter-box ;  and  a  few  hours  of  rest  suf- 
ficing to  fill  it,  it  was  often  necessary  to  empty  it  twice  a  day. 
Tlie  11th  Massachusetts,  numbering  only  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-three  officers  and  men,  has  been  cited  as  having  sent  off 
^rom  its  camp  near  Washington  an  average  of  four  thousand  five 
hundred  letters  weekly — that  is  to  say,  each  soldier  wrote  from 
five  to  six  letters  in  seven  days.  Consequently,  the  arrival  and 
departure  of  the  mail  played  a  great  part  in  camp-life.  Together 
"with  the  correspondence,  the  mail  brought  enormous  packages  of 
newspapers,  which  ragged  boys,  both  on  foot  and  on  horseback, 
distributed  in  great  haste,  even  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
camp.  They  were  frequently  seen  crying  their  papers  on  the  very 
field  of  battle,  and  selling  them  to  the  wounded  scarcely  able  to 
rise.  In  every  tent  the  latest  news  brought  by  the  Herald  or  the 
Tribune  was  read  in  the  evening  and  eagerly  discussed,  while  the 
soldier  on  duty,  if  he  thought  himself  unobserved,  walked  up 
and  down  with  his  musket  in  one  hand  and  his  newspaper  in  the 
other. 

It  may  not  be  irrelevant  in  this  place  to  say  a  few  words  as  to 
the  means  employed  by  journals  to  render  them  interesting  to 
their  numerous  readers  iii  the  towns  and  in  the  camps,  and  to 
maintain  constant  communication  between  the  peojjle  of  the 
JSTorthern  States  and  the  armies  in  the  field. 

Greatly  in  demand,  less  on  account  of  their  abstract  opinions 
than  for  the  news  they  promulgated,  and  aiming  at  no  political 
propagandism  except  through  the  manner  they  represented  facts, 
the  principal  object  of  each  was  to  gather  as  much  information 
as  possible  and  to  be  the  first  to  place  it  before  the  public.  No 
efforts  were  spared  to  attain  this  object;  and  their  correspondents, 
who  were  to  be  found  in  all  the  armies,  formed  a  staff  (this  was 
the  acknowledged  name),  entitled  to  a  place  alongside  of  the  regu- 
larly organized  corps  of  which  we  have  spoken. 

The  great  journals  were  represented  in  each  army  corps  by  an 
accredited  correspondent,  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  everything,  to 
take  part  in  every  expedition,  and  to  allow  no  incident  of  the  war 
to  pass  without  reporting  it.  This  staff  comprised  the  greatest  va- 
riety of  characters  and  peculiarities  of  life.     In  its  ranks  were 


286  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

MTiters  of  positive  merit  and  men  who,  animated  by  a  real  passion 
for  war,  ended  by  exchanging  the  pen  for  the  sword.  The  life 
which  circumstances  compelled  these  correspondents  to  lead  ex- 
acted special  qualities — tact,  daring,  and  a  great  deal  of  assurance, 
a  still  greater  amount  of  patience  and  robust  health.  When  a 
secret  was  divulged,  the  first  suspicions  fell  upon  them.  In  con- 
sequence of  a  few  lamentable  indiscretions,  the  government  ex- 
acted a  promise  from  all  those  engaged  in  writing  for  the  news- 
papers not  to  publish  what  it  was  important  to  conceal  from  the 
enemy.  They  were  therefore  obliged  to  distinguish,  among  all 
interesting  facts  they  were  the  first  to  learn,  such  as  could  lawfully 
be  communicated  to  the  public.  More  than  once  they  had  to  re- 
sort to  stratao;em  in  order  to  evade  the  order  of  some  incensed 
general  who  had  forbidden  their  stay  among  his  troops.  One 
day  Sherman  drove  off  all  the  correspondents  from  his  army. 
They  all  left,  for  his  orders  could  not  be  defied  with  impunity, 
but  at  the  end  of  one  month  they  were  all  back.  Another  gen- 
eral, while  preserving  a  friendly  aspect  toward  them,  found  means 
to  prevent  them  from  seeing  anything,  and  confined  them  to  the 
simple  task  of  reporting  stenographically  the  prearranged  state- 
ment which  he  gave  them.  Under  such  circumstances,  to  become 
a  close  observer  and  an  agreeable  reporter,  to  be  tolerated  by  the 
generals  and  welcomed  by  the  subordinates,  to  know  how  to  re- 
pay each  item  of  information  with  a  kind  and  flattering  word, 
and  in  case  of  necessity  to  enforce  respect  through  the  redoubt- 
able influence  which  is  derived  from  the  support  of  a  great  jour- 
nal,— certainly  required,  to  say  nothing  of  mental  qualifications, 
a  character  at  once  sprightly  and  tempered.  A  private  individual 
in  the  midst  of  a  large  army,  having  neither  the  shoulder-straps 
of  the  officer  nor  the  musket  of  the  soldier  with  which  to  influ- 
ence others,  or  even  to  justify  his  presence  there;  obliged  to  share 
the  dinner  of  one  man  or  to  ask  a  ration  of  forage  for  his  horse 
from  another ;  always  on  the  watch  not  to  miss  the  hour  of  de- 
parture, which  the  jealous  mistrust  of  the  chief  of  staff  carefully 
kept  from  his  knowledge ;  always  ready  to  throw  his  wallet  upon 
his  horse — a  wallet  oftener  empty  than  full ;  sleeping  wherever  he 
could,  behind  a  tent,  in  a  wagon,  or  under  a  tree, — the  correspond- 
ent, worn  out  with  fatigue,  was  obliged  every  night,  whilst  all 


PREPABATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  287 

around  were  reposing  near  the  expii'ing  camp-fires,  to  take  out  his 
pen  and  compose  upon  his  knees,  by  the  light  of  a  wretched  lan- 
tern, a  letter  capable  of  entertaining  a  public  difficult  to  please 
and  greedy  for  sensations.  Real  dangers  frequently  caused  these 
hardy  pioneers  of  the  press  to  share  the  glory  of  the  soldiers. 

The  New  York  Herald  had  in  its  service,  with  the  fleets  and 
armies,  as  many  as  sixty-three  correspondents  at  once.  One  of 
them  was  killed  on  the  field  of  battle,  another  was  present  in 
twenty-seven  combats  and  was  six  times  Avounded,  five  others 
were  wounded,  and  two  died  of  exhaustion,  while  seven  or  eight 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  latter  were  rather  mildly 
treated  in  consequence  of  the  opinion  of  the  journal  they  repre- 
sented, but  the  Confederates  deemed  no  severity  too  great  for 
those  who  happened  to  be  connected  with  abolition  papers ;  and 
the  picture  drawn  by  INIr.  Richardson,  a  correspondent  of  the 
Tribune,  of  his  sufferings  in  Southern  prisons  is  one  of  the  most 
affecting  narratives  that  one  can  read. 

Before  concluding  this  chapter  we  must  devote  a  few  pages  to 
the  regular  army,  which  was  being  reorganized  at  the  same  time 
that  the  volunteer  regiments  were  forming.  This  reorganization, 
which  was  rendered  indispensable  by  the  defection  of  a  portion 
of  the  officers,  by  the  high  positions  to  which  others  had  been 
promoted,  and  by  the  loss  of  soldiers  who  had  capitulated  in 
'J^>y'\^.  \v;is  decreed  by  the  joint  resolution  of  May  4,  18G1,  and 
which  Congress  had  passed  on  the  29th  of  July.  To  the  five 
regiments  of  cavalry  which  received  a  uniform  designation  a 
sixth  was  added  ;  the  number  of  artillery  regiments  was  increased 
from  four  to  five,  and  that  of  the  infantry  regiments  from  ten  to 
nineteen.  These  eleven  new  regiments  were  much  stronger  numer- 
ically than  the  old  ones :  the  Sixth  Cavalry,  raised  to  twelve  squad- 
rons, numbered  1189  officers  and  men;  the  Fifth  Artillery,  also 
divided  into  twelve  batteries  of  six  field-pieces  each,  commanded 
by  twelve  captains  and  three  majors,  comprised  a  total  force  of 
1919  men.  Finally,  instead  of  a  single  battalion  of  ten  com- 
panies, the  new  infantry  regiments  were  composed  of  three  bat- 
talions of  eight  companies  each,  and  their  effective  force,  as  regu- 
lated by  law,  was  2452  men. 

These  new  regiments,  having  once  received  their  full  comple- 


288  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ment,  added  25,000  men  to  the  regular  army,  and  thus  made  up 
the  total  of  42,000  men  fixed  by  the  law  of  July  29th.  But  it 
was  so  difficult  to  obtain  recruits  that  in  December,  1861,  when 
the  enlistment  of  volunteers  had  reached  the  figure  of  640,637 
men,  this  army  had  not  yet  enrolled-  under  its  banners  more  than 
20,334  men,  not  quite  one-half  the  number  prescribed  by  law. 
The  small  number  of  enlistments  in  the  regular  army  was  due, 
first  of  all,  to  the  fact  that  these  enlistments  were  for  a  definite 
period,  while  the  volunteers  were  to  be  discharged  at  the  end  of 
the  war,  and  everybody  believed  that  it  could  not  last  three  years ; 
then  to  the  retention  of  two  dollars  per  month  from  the  pay  of 
the  regular  soldier,  while  the  volunteer  drew  his  compensation  in 
full,  and  the  States  granted  him  additional  bounties  and  secured 
a  pension  to  his  family ;.  and,  finally,  to  the  spirit  of  comrade- 
ship which  influenced  the  organization  of  volunteer  companies, 
whilst  the  reputation  for  severe  discipline  which  the  regular  army 
had  gained  kept  many  young  men  aloof  from  it. 

This  army  was  not  only  compelled  to  play  an  insignificant  part 
in  the  new  forces  of  the  republic,  but  the  elements  of  which  it 
was  composed  were  another  cause  of  weakness.  Out  of  its  20,000 
soldiers  more  than  half,  collected  with  so  much  difficulty,  were 
entirely  raw,  and  their  instruction  was  the  more  difficult  because 
the  most  intelligent,  the  strongest,  and  the  most  disinterested  men 
were  immediately  prevented  from  joining  their  ranks.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  prejudices  above  mentioned,  the  proportion  of  new 
comers  was  even  larger  among  the  officers  than  among  the  sol- 
diers. The  drafts  which  the  volunteers  had  made  upon  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  regular  army  had  diminished  their  number  even 
more  than  this  defection.  Twenty-two  superior  officers  had  thus 
left  their  respective  commands  to  become  generals,  and  officers  of 
inferior  grade  had  likewise  been  called  to  fill  positions  of  trust 
elsewhere — so  that  out  of  the  eleven  new  regiments  there  were 
eight  whose  nominal  colonels  exercised  other  commands  as  gen- 
erals of  volunteers,  while  the  greatest  part  of  their  officers  had 
received  no  military  education  whatever.  In  fact,  the  vacan- 
cies had  been  so  numerous  that  the  West  Point  Academy,  already 
reduced  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  Southern  cadets,  was  not  able 
to  fill  them,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to  distribute  the  lo^ver 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  STRIFE.  289 

grades  among  young  men  fresh  from  civil  life,  who  filled  the 
subaltern  positions  in  the  new  regiments.  Nevertheless,  the 
esprit  de  corps,  that  moral  influence  which  attaches  to  a  word,  a 
number,  or  a  sign,  which  has  the  power  of  transforming  men, 
soon  imparted  habits  of  steadiness  and  discipline  to  the  new 
comers,  who,  after  the  first  combats,  rivalled  their  older  brethren 
in  courage  and  sustained  the  credit  of  the  regular  troops. 

It  was  especially  the  regular  infantry  which,  in  consequence  of 
its  reduced  strength,  had  to  play  an  insignificant  part  among  the 
divisions  of  the  volunteer  infantry.  Yet  in  the  army  of  Ken- 
tucky, where  it  was  only  represented  by  a  single  battalion  belong- 
ing to  the  Eighteenth  Regiment,  that  detachment  distinguished 
itself  in  the  first  battle  fought  by  that  army  at  Mill  Springs. 
In  the  army  of  the  Potomac  it  was  represented  by  eight  battal- 
ions, or  a  little  over  five  thousand  men  ;  these  were  not  enough  for 
a  reserve  destined  to  strike  a  decisive  blow,  but  this  corps,  under 
able  command,  served  as  a  model  to  the  others  and  constantly 
encouraged  them  by  its  example,  whereas,  if  it  had  been  scattered, 
its  traditions  would  have  been  destroyed  and  its  efficiency  neutral- 
ized. Formed  into  a  single  brigade,  these  eight  battalions  were 
at  first  entrusted  with  the  delicate  duty  of  protecting  the  city 
of  Washington ;  we  shall  find  them  again  among  the  volunteers, 
suffering  themselves  to  be  cut  to  pieces  rather  than  fall  Ijack  on 
the  battle-fields  of  Virginia.  The  regular  cavalry  had  a  more 
important  part  to  play  at  the  beginning  than  the  infantry,  for  it 
was  proportionally  more  numerous,  and  the  inexperience  of  the 
mounted  volunteers  compelled  it  to  perform  during  a  certain 
period  of  time  all  the  duties  pertaining  to  that  arm.  In  order 
to  accomplish  this  and  to  recover  its  morale,  which  had  been 
affected  by  the  capitulations  in  Texas,  the  defection  of  four  col- 
onels out  of  five,  and  the  changes  of  regimental  numbers.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  hastened  to  annex  two-thirds  of  them  to  the  array 
of  the  Potomac,  which  only  contained  seven  squadrons  when  he 
assumed  the  command.  From  that  time  they  found  themselves 
sufficiently  strong  to  teach  the  volunteers  their  business  by  fighting 
in  front  of  them  and  making  them  gradually  participate  in  the 
work,  the  burden  of  which  they  had  hitherto  borne  alone.  We 
shall  frequently  meet  them  in  the  course  of  our  narrative;  but  in 

Vol.  I.— 19 


290  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

proportion  as  the  volunteers  who  fought  by  their  side  acquired 
experience,  the  particular  importance  of  the  regulars  will  dimin- 
ish, and  will  disappear  altogether  when,  after  the  reorganization 
of  the  Federal  cavalry,  the  regulars  will  be  distributed  among 
the  various  corps  whose  long  expeditions  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  relate. 

The  artillery  force  was  increased  by  the  creation  of  the  fifth 
regiment,  and  the  garrisons  required  by  the  armament  of  fortifi- 
cation, to  a  total  of  fifty-two  batteries.  Although  the  effective 
force  of  these  batteries  was  far  from  being  complete,  their  number 
gave  them  a  preponderance  in  the  new  armies,  because  either  the 
regular  artillery  was  kept  united  for  the  purpose  of  forming 
powerful  reserves,  or  it  was  divided  among  the  various  corps  to 
instruct  the  volunteers.  This  twofold  duty  was  assigned  to  them 
in  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  Out  of  seventy-three  batteries  or 
four  hundred  and  seven  pieces  which  that  army  had  at  the  begin- 
ning of  1862,  there  were  twenty-nine  regular  batteries,  compris- 
ing one  hundred  and  sixty-six  pieces ;  eighteen  batteries  formed  a 
corps  of  reserve,  and  one  of  the  remaining  batteries  was  attached 
to  each  division  of  the  army. 

As  we  have  stated,  the  eleven  captains  who  commanded  these 
last  batteries  had  in  addition  three  volunteer  batteries  under  their 
orders ;  and  thanks  to  their  instructions,  the  new  artillery  after 
one  or  two  campaigns  equalled  the  regulars  who  had  been  given 
them  as  models.  The  formation  of  a  strong  reserve  of  artillery 
was  a  wise  precaution  in  an  army  composed  entirely  of  young 
soldiers.  In  the  army  of  the  Potomac  it  was  organized  by  the 
brave  Colonel  Hunt,  under  the  supervision  of  General  Barry,  and 
comprised  three  divisions,  one  of  heavy  artillery,  another  of  light 
batteries  on  foot,  and  a  third  of  horse-batteries.  The  latter,  four 
in  number,  armed  with  three-inch  cannon,  solid  and  light,  well 
provided  with  horses,  and  perfectly  handled,  accompanied  the 
cavalry,  which  they  frequently  assisted  in  an  effective  manner 
without  ever  impeding  its  movements. 

These  are  the  last  lines  we  shall  devote,  by  way  of  s})ecial 
mention,  to  the  little  regular  army  which  we  have  followed  since 
its  formation ;  for  after  having  preserved  its  military  traditions 
and  supported,  in  the  hour  of  danger,  the  tottering  edifice  of  the 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  STRIFE.  291 

Federal  Constitution,  it  was  absorbed  into  the  improvised  armies 
to  the  creation  of  which  we  have  just  referred.  But  if  it  ceased  to 
have  a  separate  existence,  its  spirit  still  survived  and  continued  to 
control  the  action  of  the  new  comers;  the  influence  and  the  im- 
portance of  the  regular  officers  will  increase  in  proportion  as  the 
volunteers  acquire  more  military  experience ;  and  when  at  the  end 
of  the  struggle  the  regular  army  shall  once  emerge  to  view,  we 
shall  find  five  hundred  and  fifty  of  its  officers  detached  among  the 
volunteers,  one  hundred  and  fifteen  of  whom  were  generals  and 
sixty  commanders  of  regiments.  Let  us  add,  however,  that  this 
regular  army,  such  as  we  shall  then  see  it  reappear,  will  no  longer 
be  the  same  we  have  known  before  the  war,  constituting  a  kind 
of  isolated  corporation,  and  the  jealous  guardian  of  its  traditions; 
it  will,  in  fact,  have  opened  its  doors  to  all  merit  displayed  on 
the  field  of  battle;  and  numbering  in  its  ranks  all  those  who 
after  achieving  distinction  have  desired  to  continue  in  the  mili- 
tary career,  it  will  have  the  rare  good  fortune  to  combine  the  best 
qualities  of  the  volunteers  wdth  the  noble  attributes  of  the  old 
regulars. 


CHAPTER  ly. 

THE  MATERIEL  OF  WiiE. 

BEFORE  we  resume  the  narrative  of  military  operations  we 
must  close  our  inquiry  into  the  organization  of  the  two  con- 
tending armies  with  a  few  words  regarding  the  manner  in  which 
they  were  equipped  ;  the  creation  of  the  maUriel,  so  varied,  so  ex- 
tensive, and  so  indispensable  to  both  parties,  was  as  difficult  a 
problem  for  their  chiefs  as  the  reunion  of  the  personnel  of  which 
they  were  composed. 

The  almost  inexhaustible  industrial  resources  of  the  North  gave 
her  a  great  advantage  in  this  respect,  but  it  required  time  to  bring 
this  materiel  together,  to  transport  and  distribute  it.  It  required 
time,  above  all,  to  introduce  order  and  method  into  those  opera- 
tions, and  to  teach  the  armies  the  practical  value  of  the  instru- 
ments placed  in  their  hands.  In  the  Federal  army  the  duty  of 
organizing  this  materiel,  as  we  have  said  before,  was  divided  among 
three  branches  of  the  administration — the  departments  of  the  quar- 
termaster, the  commissary  of  subsistence,  and  the  ordnance ;  the 
first  charged  with  equipment  and  transportation,  the  second  with 
the  provision  of  food,  and  the  third  with  arming  troops. 

As  soon  as  the  volunteers  were  called  out  the  quartermaster's 
department  entered  into  contracts  with  home  manufacturers  and  a 
few  foreign  merchants,  which  enabled  it  to  clothe  the  soldiers  as 
fast  as  they  presented  themselves,  and  to  supply  them  with  all  the 
necessaries  of  personal  outfit.  Notwithstanding  some  defective  lots 
and  a  few  very  exorbitant  bargains,  this  mercantile  operation  was 
successfully  carried  out.  No  one  was  troubled  at  the  thought  of 
spending  a  few  millions  more  than  was  strictly  necessary  in  order 
to  induce  persons  engaged  in  private  business  to  change  their  opera- 
tions at  once,  so  as  to  meet  the  new  demands  made  upon  the  industry 
of  the  country.  This  transformation  was  effected  in  a  remarkable 
manner.     Thus  nearly  all  the  accoutrements  for  the  cavalry  of 

292 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  293 

the  army  of  the  Potomac  were  supplied  by  a  firm  largely  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  trimming-laces  {'passementerie)  in  Philadel- 
phia, which  in  a  few  days  threw  aside  their  bobbins  to  engage  in 
the  manufacture  of  leather  belts  and  sabres.  During  the  first 
fourteen  months  of  the  war  the  administrative  department  fur- 
nished the  army  with  three  million  coats  and  nearly  two  million 
five  hundred  thousand  blankets.  It  supplied  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  tents  for  the  first  winter's  encampments.  AA^ien 
the  armies  took  the  field,  they  were  naturally  obliged  to  leave  all 
these  tents  behind  them,  with  the  exception  of  a  certain  number 
for  the  officers.  The  quartermaster's  department  then  substituted 
shelter-tents,  of  which  they  distributed  more  than  three  hundred 
thousand  in  one  year.  These  were  soon  improved  by  the  use  of 
india-rubber  cloth ;  and  the  advantages  of  this  system  to  the  health 
of  the  soldiers  in  the  marshy  forests  of  America  were  so  great 
that  by  degrees  all  the  coverlets  of  the  army  were  replaced  by  the 
waterproof  poncho,  a  square  piece  of  cloth  with  a  hole  in  the 
centre  for  the  head,  worn  over  the  shoulders  when  it  rained,  and 
in  the  evening  spread  out  upon  the  damp  ground,  over  which  the 
shelter-tent  was  pitched.  Consequently,  the  number  of  these  india- 
rubber  garments,  which  in  1861  was  forty  thousand,  rose  to  one 
million  five  hundred  thousand  in  18B4  ;  and  it  has  been  estimated 
that,  placed  alongside  of  each  other,  they  would  have  presented  a 
surface  of  one  mile  and  a  quarter  square — that  is  to  say,  four  times 
as  large  as  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries. 

The  uniforms  furnished  to  the  volunteers  of  various  arms  were 
nearly  all  alike,  and  this  similarity  increased  in  proportion  as  the 
outfits  which  the  first  regiments  had  brought  from  their  respective 
States  were  replaced  by  the  issues  of  the  government  departments. 
Their  color  of  deep  blue  distinguished  them  from  the  gray  coats 
of  the  Confederates.  The  felt  hats  and  the  regulation  coat  of 
the  regular  army,  which  the  generals  and  their  staffs  adopted 
almost  everywhere,  were  replaced  by  the  kepi  and  the  blouse,  a 
sack  which  had  the  inconvenience  of  being  too  loose  to  fit  well 
about  the  shoulders.  A  canvas  haversack,  a  belt  to  which  was 
fastened  the  cartridge-box  and  the  bayonet,  completed  the  accou- 
trement of  the  foot-soldier. 

The  equipment  of  the  mounted  men  was  also  copied  from  that 


294  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  the  regular  cavalry,  althougli  they  had  to  wage  war  in  a  country 
very  diflPerent  from  the  Western  plains.  The  regulation  saddle, 
called  the  McClellan  saddle,  was  light  and  comfortable,  and  did 
not  hurt  the  withers  of  the  animal,  but  the  wooden  stirrups  with 
leather  coverings  to  protect  the  feet  against  the  tall  grass  of  the 
prairie  were  heavy  and  inconvenient.  The  cavalry  soldier  carried 
a  revolver  at  his  belt ;  the  regulations  required  that  he  should  also 
attach  his  sabre  to  it,  but  by  degrees  he  acquired  the  habit  of  sus- 
pending it  to  the  pommel — an  excellent  idea ;  for  if  the  soldier, 
when  dismounted,  should  never  be  separated  from  his  pistol,  the 
side-arm,  on  the  contrary,  only  embarrasses  his  movements  the 
moment  he  quits  the  saddle.  The  mounted  men  were  moreover 
provided  with  a  short  musket,  or  even  an  infantry  carbine,  which 
greatly  increased  the  weight  of  the  burden  of  their  horses,  but  of 
which  they  made  frequent  use  in  those  engagements  where  they 
were  obliged  to  fight  on  foot. 

All  the  personal  effects  of  the  soldiers,  coats,  linen,  shoes,  and 
boots,  were  furnished  directly  by  the  administrative  departments. 
No  reduction  was  made  from  their  pay  to  constitute  a  regimental 
fund.  The  system  of  making  clothing  in  the  regiments,  which 
has  enabled  certain  armies  to  practice  economy,  has  never  existed 
in  America.  It  was  looked  upon  as  calculated  to  greatly  increase 
the  number  of  non-combatants  in  the  personnel  of  a  regiment, 
and  it  was  deemed  best  to  adopt  the  system  of  general  contracts, 
more  in  harmony  with  the  process  of  modern  industry,  even  at 
the  risk  of  furnishing  the  soldiers  with  uniforms  not  as  well 
fitting  as  might  be  desired.  By  this  means  the  functions  of  the 
administrative  departments  and  the  system  of  regimental  accounts 
were  simplified,  whereas  it  would  have  been  often  difficult  to 
discriminate  between  proper  economy  and  illegal  profits.  It  was 
the  enterprise  of  private  individuals,  under  the  supervision  of 
special  officers  of  the  administrative  departments,  which  furnished 
the  soldiers  with  everything. 

Of  all  the  operations  entrusted  to  the  quartermaster's  depart- 
ment the  most  important,  as  well  as  the  most  difficult,  was  that 
of  supplying  fresh  horses  for  the  cavalry,  the  artillery,  and 
the  transportation  departments.  The  consumption  of  draught 
animals  by  the  armies  was  to  affect  seriously  the  agricultural 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  29£ 

interests  of  the  country.  The  breeds  of  American  horse;-:  are 
generally  small.  The  fatal  habit  of  putting  them  too  soon  under 
the  saddle  interferes  with  their  growth.  The  regulations  which 
forbade  their  being  accepted  into  the  service  under  five  years  of 
age  and  less  than  fifteen  hands  high  (five  feet  at  the  withers) 
could  not  be  complied  with,  for  it  was  necessary  to  take  all  that 
could  be  found ;  and  the  sorrier  the  horses  the  greater  the  con- 
sumption, and  consequently  the  larger  the  amount  of  fresh  horses 
required  to  replace  them.  During  the  first  year  of  the  war  the 
number  of  horses  procured  for  the  cavalry  and  the  artillery  alone 
was  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand. 

Immense  corrals  were  established  among  the  vacant  lots  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Washington  and  of  the  Western  cities  to  re- 
ceive droves  of  animals  emaciated  by  long  journeys  which  the 
horse-contractors  brought  from  Vermont  and  Kentucky.  Taken 
a  few  days  previously  from  the  farm  upon  which  they  were 
grazing  at  liberty,  never  having  been  broken,  these  horses  were 
crowded  in  a  too  narrow  space,  carelessly  picketed,  baidly  fed, 
seldom  groomed,  and  without  any  shelter.  Their  power  of 
endurance  under  so  many  trials  showed  what  robust  constitutions 
they  possessed  in  spite  of  their  appearance,  and  the  impunity 
with  which  the  contractors,  horse-dealers,  inspectors,  and  the 
officers  authorized  to  make  their  own  selections  moved  about 
among  them  was  the  best  proof  of  their  docility. 

Occasionally,  however,  some  unforeseen  accident  would  create 
disorder  at  the  depot.  Tims,  for  instance,  one  evening  the  prin- 
cipal stable  in  Washington  caught  fire,  and  six  hundred  horses 
maddened  with  terror  rushed  through  the  badly-lighted  streets 
of  the  capital,  upsetting  pedestrians  and  carriages  on  their  way 
and  spreading  trouble  and  confusion  everywhere. 

Notwithstanding  the  enormous  supply  of  fresh  horses,  the  gov- 
ernment could  hardly  replace  the  lame  and  foundered  animals 
which  filled  the  large  infirmaries  established  specially  for  their 
reception.  During  the  first  year  of  the  war  there  were  no  less 
than  fifty-seven  thousand  cured;  in  the  course  of  those  twelve 
months  more  than  one  regiment  used  up  three  horses  to  every 
man;  and  it  was  only  through  the  severest  discipline  that  the 
mounted  men  were  taug-ht  at  last  to  take  care  of  their  horses. 


296  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Thus  it  happened  that  one  of  them  was  killed  in  the  streets  of 
Washington  by  a  sentinel  who  had  in  vain  ordered  him  to  slacken 
his  pace,  in  order  to  prevent  them  from  madly  galloping  about 
the  capital. 

We  have  already  shown  by  a  few  figures  the  importance  of  the 
transportation  service;  this  importance  will  become  more  and 
more  appparent  as  we  proceed  with  the  narrative  of  the  cam- 
paigns in  which  this  branch  of  the  service  exercised  a  decided 
influence.  It  will  suffice  to  say  in  this  place  that  during  the 
first  year,  which  alone  occupies  our  present  attention,  the  govern- 
ment was  obliged  to  furnish  more  than  twenty  thousand  wagons 
and  eighty-four  thousand  mules,  without  counting  the  wagons 
brought  by  the  soldiers  themselves  from  their  respective  States. 
The  military  transportation  was  effected  exclusively  by  means 
of  wagons,  pack-horses  being  seldom  employed  in  the  United 
States.  The  officers  who  had  made  use  of  them  in  Mexico,  while 
recognizing  the  advantages  of  their  employment  in  certain  cases, 
did  not  deem  it  expedient  to  recommend  their  adoption  in  a  coun- 
try where  wagon-roads  are  so  easily  constructed.  This  system 
would  be  attended  by  the  very  great  inconvenience  of  making 
each  animal  carry  a  lighter  load  than  if  in  harness ;  moreover,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  find  experienced  drivers  to  man- 
age these  pack-animals.  A  large  establishment  was  established 
at  Perryville,  on  the  Susquehanna,  where  mules  were  trained  to 
work  in  teams  of  six,  driven  by  word  of  command  with  the  aid 
of  a  single  loose  rein. 

The  construction  of  bridge-equipages,  which,  once  collected, 
were  placed  under  the  care  of  volunteer  troops  specially  selected 
for  that  service,  belonged  also  to  the  quartermaster's  department. 
The  maUriel  of  these  equipages  varied  frequently.  One  experi- 
ment was  made,  and  then  abandoned  as  too  complicated,  with  iron 
pontons,  which  in  the  water  served  as  boats,  and  on  land  were 
placed  on  wheels  to  form  trucks  to  bear  the  roadway.  In  the 
armies  of  the  West  large  bags  of  gutta-percha  or  india-rubber  were 
substituted  for  boats,  but  were  rejected  by  the  army  of  the  Poto- 
mac, as  they  were  too  easily  torn.  The  materials  most  generally 
in  use  were  either  simple  wooden  barges  that  could  easily  be 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  297 

repaired  or  tubular  pontons  of  sheet  iron,  which  had  the  advan- 
tage of  being  much  lighter. 

It  will  be  enough  to  mention  the  regulation  ration  of  the 
American  soldier  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  importance  of  the 
subsistence  department,  whose  duty  it  was  to  provide  food  for  the 
armies,  which  on  the  1st  of  December,  1861,  numbered  six  hundred 
thousand  men.  To  the  commissary  of  subsistence  there  were  no 
"dead-heads"  (non-valeurs).  All  those  who  were  prevented  by 
special  assignment  from  appearing  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
whom  the  general  must  deduct  from  his  fighting  force,  seated 
themselves  in  the  evening  with  the  rest  around  the  mess-table, 
which  the  commissary  had  to  supply.  One  pound  of  biscuit  or 
twenty-two  ounces  of  bread  or  floiJr,  one  pound  and  a  quarter  of 
fresh  or  salt  beef  or  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  bacon — a  favor- 
ite food  with  soldiers — constituted  the  bulk  of  the  ration ;  but  to 
this  was  added  for  every  division  of  one  hundred  men  by  the 
regulations  eight  gallons  of  beans,  ten  pounds  of  rice  or  of 
hominy,  an  American  dish  made  from  the  grains  of  corn,*  ten 
pounds  of  coffee,  fifteen  of  sugar,  four  gallons  of  vinegar  and 
two  of  salt,  one  pound  and  a  quarter  of  candles,  and  four  pounds 
of  soap.  Consequently,  notwithstanding  the  appetite  of  the 
American  soldier  and  his  want  of  economy  in  cooking,  it  would 
have  been  no  easy  matter  for  him  to  consume  such  a  ration ;  and 
the  forty-seven  or  forty-eight  men  composing  a  company  would 
form  a  mess  which  enabled  them  to  get  along  without  drawing 
their  full  quantity  of  rations  from  the  commissary.  The  difference 
was  paid  to  them  in  money,  and  generally  formed  a  common  fund 
for  the  company,  controlled  by  it  without  the  interposition  of  their 
superior  officers.  Occasionally  a  regiment  would  undertake  a 
similar  economy  in  regard  to  the  supply  of  flour.  A  consider- 
able number  of  those  encamped  around  Washington  constructed 
earthen  ovens  similar  to  those  in  use  among  Western  settlers  and 
made  their  own  bread,  thereby  realizing  the  double  advantage  of 
substituting  fresh  bread  for  biscuit  and  realizing  the  profits  accruing 
from  the  economy  of  their  flour  rations.     One  regiment  alone,  the 

*  Hominy  is  made  of  dried  corn,  but  green  corn  played  a  great  pait  as  food 
during  the  war. — Ed. 


298  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

third  of  Sickles'  brigade,  was  thus  enabled  to  save  thirteen  hun- 
dred dollars  in  less  than  two  months. 

The  task  of  supplying  the  Federal  troops  with  arms  and  ammu- 
nition, which  devolved  upon  the  ordnance  department,  was  the 
most  difficult  of  all.  In  fact,  both  the  government  armories  and 
private  manufactories  were  insufficient  to  meet  the  demand,  and 
it  required  time  to  establish  additional  ones.  The  wonderful 
machines  by  which  the  most  complicated  rifles  now  in  use  through- 
out Europe  are  constructed  almost  without  the  aid  of  man  are  of 
American  invention,  and  have  given  a  well-deserved  reputation  to 
the  expansion  rifles  manufactured  at  the  government  armory  in 
Springfield.  But  this  establishment  had  only  capacity  for  pro- 
ducing from  ten  to  twelve  thousand  yearly,  and  the  supply  could 
not  be  increased  except  by  constructing  new  machines.  The 
private  workshops  were  equally  insufficient ;  the  Federal  factory 
at  Harrier's  Ferry  had  been  destroyed  by  fire,  and  the  depots  were 
empty.  It  was  important,  however,  to  supply  the  most  pressing 
of  all  the  wants  of  the  soldier,  that  of  having  a  weapon  in  his 
hands. 

During  the  first  year  of  the  war  the  ordnance  department  suc- 
ceeded in  furnishing  the  various  armies  in  the  field,  not  counting 
what  was  left  at  the  depots,  one  million  two  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-six thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty-six  portable  firearms 
(muskets,  carbines,  and  pistols),  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
twenty-six  field-  or  siege-guns,  twelve  hundred  pieces  for  batteries 
in  position,  and  two  hundred  and  fourteen  million  cartridges  for 
small-arms  and  for  cannon.  But  it  was  obliged  to  apply  to 
Europe  for  muskets  and  ammunition  ;  this  was  the  only  war 
commodity  that  America  procured  in  considerable  quantities  from 
the  Old  World,  and  it  was  this  supply  which  proved  to  be  the 
most  defective.  Agents  without  either  experience  or  credit,  and 
sometimes  unscrupulous,  bought  in  every  part  of  Europe,  on 
account  of  the  Federal  government,  all  the  muskets  they  could 
pick  up,  without  any  regard  to  their  quality  or  price.  The  Eng- 
lish and  Belgian  manufactories  not  being  able  to  satisfy  their 
demands  fast  enough,  they  procured  from  the  little  German  states 
all  their  old-fashioned  arms,  which  those  states  hastened  to  get 
rid  of  at  a  price  which  enabled  them  to  re^^lace  them  with  needle- 


THE  MATMiEL  of  WAR.  299 

guns.  In  short,  the  refuse  of  all  Europe  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  American  volunteers. 

A  portion  of  the  muskets  being  unfit  for  use,  the  few  that 
were  serviceable  had  to  be  kept  for  the  soldiers  doing  guard  duty 
in  each  company.  The  calibres  were  all  mixed  up ;  conical  balls 
were  issued  for  the  large  German  smooth-bore  muskets,  while  the 
old  American  cartridge,  containing  one  ball  and  four  buckshot,  was 
given  to  those  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  possess  a  minie  rifle. 
The  defective  armament  of  the  infantry  would  have  been  suf- 
ficient to  delay  the  opening  of  the  campaign  for  several  months. 
In  order  to  remedy  this  it  was  found  necessary,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  classify  the  calibres  of  the  muskets  by  regiments, 
then  gradually  to  throw  aside  the  most  worthless.  After  a  while 
the  American  factories,  both  national  and  private,  were  able  to 
furnish  a  sufficient  quantity  of  new  arms  to  justify  this  process. 

While  willing  to  encourage  private  enterprise  to  a  great  extent, 
the  Federal  government  determined  to  control  it ;  and  in  order  to 
avoid  being  at  its  mercy,  it  largely  extended  its  own  establish- 
ments. Thus,  in  1862,  the  Springfield  manufactory  delivered 
two  hundred  thousand  rifles,  while  in  the  year  1863,  during 
which  there  were  manufactured  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
there,  the  importation  of  arms  from  Europe  by  the  Northern 
States  ceased  altogether.  The  rifle  which  bore  the  name  of  the 
Federal  manufactory  had  the  advantage  of  not  requiring  heavy 
charges,  of  giving  a  great  precision  of  aim  at  a  distance  of  from 
six  to  seven  hundred  metres,  and  of  being  easily  loaded  and  man- 
aged. It  was  therefore  introduced  throughout  the  army  as  fast 
as  the  ordnance  department  was  able  to  meet  the  demands  that 
were  made  for  that  arm  from  every  quarter.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  a  great  number  of  new  inventions  were  tried  upon  a  scale 
which  enabled  the  authorities  to  test  their  merits.  Some  were 
even  adopted  by  whole  regiments  of  cavalry ;  and  the  practice 
of  breech-loading,  which  was  common  to  all  the  systems,  contrib- 
uted greatly  to  their  efficiency  in  the  numerous  engagements  in 
which  those  regiments  had  to  fight  on  foot.  With  the  exception 
of  this  mode  of  loading,  they  differed  greatly  in  their  construc- 
tion ;  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  describe  all,  for  tliere  were 
no  less  than  eleven  of  the  first  class.    We  shall  only  mention  two 


300  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

belonging  'o  the  class  called  repeating-rifles — that  is  to  say,  arms 
which  fire  a  certain  number  of  shots  without  being  reloaded. 
The  Colt  rifle  is  a  long-barrelled  revolver  with  five  or  six  cham- 
bers, and  the  ball  is  forced  into  seven  grooves  forming  a  spiral 
which  grows  more  and  more  contracted.  This  heavy  weapon  was 
formidable  in  practiced  hands,  but  it  required  considerable  time 
to  reload  it.  The  second  was  the  Spencer  rifle,  an  excellent  arm, 
the  use  of  which  became  more  and  more  extended  in  the  Federal 
army.  The  butt  is  pierced,  in  the  direction  of  the  length,  by  a 
tube  containing  seven  cartridges,  which  are  deposited  successively, 
after  each  fire,  in  the  chamber,  replacing  in  turn  those  which, 
when  discharged,  are  thrown  out  by  a  very  simple  mechanism. 
This  magazine,  entirely  protected,  is  very  easily  recharged.  Many 
extraordinary  instances  have  been  cited  of  successful  personal 
defence  due  to  the  rapidity  with  which  this  arm  can  be  fired,  and 
some  Federal  regiments  of  infantry  which  made  a  trial  of  it  were 
highly  pleased  with  the  result.  Most  of  these  rifles  were  of  two 
models — one  for  the  use  of  the  infantry,  the  other,  lighter  and 
shorter,  for  the  cavalry. 

The  materiel  of  the  artillery,  which  had  to  be  created,  was  as 
extensive  as  the  armament  of  the  infantry,  and  its  construction 
was  also  new  to  American  manufactories.  Nevertheless,  the  great 
workshops  for  smelting  iron  and  steel  were  so  rapidly  transformed 
into  cannon  foundries  that  the  ordnance  department  was  not 
obliged  to  depend  on  Europe  for  a  supply. 

At  the  time  when  the  war  broke  out  none  of  the  systems  of 
rifle  cannon  invented  a  few  years  before  had  ever  been  adopted, 
or  even  seriously  experimented  upon,  by  the  officers  of  the  regu- 
lar army.  But  the  latter,  while  adhering  to  the  brass  smooth-bore 
cannon,  had  studied  these  difierent  inventions,  and  did  not  conceal 
their  preference  for  the  rifled  system,  by  which  the  ball,  like  the 
minie  bullet,  inserted  through  the  mouth  of  the  cannon,  is  driven 
into  the  grooves  under  the  pressure  of  the  gases  which  propel  it 
forward.  The  impression  obtained  from  these  inquiries  in  com- 
mon was  never  forgotten  by  the  officers  who  were  placed  in  posi- 
tions of  command  in  the  two  hostile  armies ;  and  notwithstanding 
the  diversity  of  details,  the  guns  of  those  two  armies  always 
bore  a  strong  family  resemblance.     But  nothing  could  limit  the 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  301 

fertility  of  inventors  stimulated  by  the  war.  A  few  among  them 
were  men  of  real  ability  and  skill,  but  those  who  indulged  in 
chimerical  speculations  were  more  numerous.  Some  of  them  were 
visionary  and  ridiculous,  and  there  were  a  few  to  whom  their  in- 
ventions brought  disaster,  as,  for  example,  Mr.  James  and  Major 
Hunt,  the  former  of  whom  was  killed  by  the  explosion  of  his 
gun  and  the  latter  asphyxiated  by  his  submarine  battery.* 

None  of  these  inventions  were  subjected  to  the  polygon  proof. 
There  was  no  time  for  that  kind  of  experiments  which  alone  en- 
abled the  expert  fully  to  ascertain  the  real  value  of  an  arm  before 
it  is  exposed  to  all  the  vicissitudes  of  war.  The  materiel  of  the 
army  was  thus  suddenly  encumbered  with  a  mass  of  different 
models,  all  equally  new  to  those  who  had  to  handle  them  on  the 
field  of  battle.  In  fact,  every  inventor  who  had  any  patronage 
could  easily  manage  to  have  a  few  of  his  guns  recommended  to 
the  principal  of  some  foundry,  who  was  generally  his  partner. 
A  few  shots  fired  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  factory  were  deemed 
sufficient  to  determine  the  strength  of  the  guns ;  and  if  chance 
favored  them,  the  piece  was  immediately  received  and  added  to 
the  diversified  assortment  Mdiich  already  existed  in  the  Federal 
artillery.  This  very  variety,  however,  was  at  times  the  means 
of  procuring  the  opportunity  for  remarkable  inventions  to  obtain 
a  striking  confirmation  of  their  merits  on  the  field  of  battle. 

American  genius,  quick  to  turn  everything  to  account,  under- 
stood at  once  that,  at  a  time  when  any  delay  might  prove  fatal,  it 
was  not  expedient  to  look  for  a  weapon  too  frail  and  difficult  to 
repair.  It  studied,  above  all,  simplicity  in  regard  to  the  four  es- 
sential parts  in  the  manufacture  of  artillery — the  founding,  the 
system  of  rifling,  the  mode  of  projDelling  balls  and  shells.  There 
were  wanting  field-pieces  that  could  be  rapidly  constructed  at  a 
moderate  cost,  easily  loaded,  so  as  to  be  handled  by  inexperienced 
hands,  and  projectiles  that  could  be  carried  to  great  distances 
without  injury  to  the  parts  intended  to  be  forced  into  the  grooves. 

Two  guns  were  adopted  which  amply  satisfied  these  require- 
ments— the  Parrott  gun,  made  of  cast  iron,  secured  with  iron- 
plated  bands  at  the  breech,  and  one  gun  constructed  at  the  iron- 
works of  Phoenixville,  designated  by  its  calibre,  from  three  to 
*  Major  E.  B.  Hunt,  of  tlie  Engineers. — Ed. 


302  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

four  and  a  half  inches  in  diameter,  and  made  of  wrought-iron 
bars. 

The  problem  regarding  the  construction  of  guns  of  large  calibre 
was  solved  by  Captain  Rodman,  whose  process  imparted  such 
strength  to  those  guns,  although  made  of  cast  iron,  that  it  only 
required  the  application  of  the  Parrott  system  of  plate  bands  to 
enable  them  to  discharge  conical  projectiles  of  the  gi-eatest  weight. 
U])  to  that  time  the  guns  had  been  cast  solid,  and  bored  after- 
wards ;  thus  the  exterior  of  the  piece,  touching  the  sides  of  the 
mould,  was  the  first  to  solidify,  and  the  interior,  still  half  liquid, 
not  able  to  contract  regularly,  became  crystallized,  leaving  here 
and  there  in  the  mass  hollows  or  flaws  which  caused  the  metal  to 
lose  its  uniformity.  Kodman  reversed  the  operation,  and  caused 
the  piece  to  cool  from  the  interior.  A  hollow  cylinder,  contain- 
ing a  spiral  tube  through  which  a  current  of  cold  water  was 
kept  passing,  surrounded  with  cords  and  with  sand  to  protect  it 
from  the  metal  in  fusion,  was  placed  in  the  mould  to  designate 
the  bore ;  the  gases  escaped  by  means  of  longitudinal  flutings  in 
the  cylinder  and  through  the  spaces  left  by  the  cords,  which  were 
constantly  consumed.  Whilst  the  interior  was  the  first  portion 
solidified,  through  contact  with  the  cylinder  so  constantly  kept 
cool,  the  furnaces  burning  under  the  mould  kept  up  the  heat  on 
the  outside.  The  intensity  of  this  heat  was  then  gradually  dimin- 
ished until  the  entire  mass  had  lost  its  redness — an  operation  which, 
for  the  largest  guns,  lasted  several  weeks.  The  metal,  by  con- 
tracting without  interference,  possessed  a  greater  density,  a  finer 
and  more  uniform  grain ;  and  crystallizing  thus,  its  fibre  oifered 
the  greatest  possible  resistance  to  pressure  upon  the  bore.  A  long 
experience  has  fully  confirmed  the  princij)les  upon  which  Captain 
Rodman  had  based  his  new  process,  which  is  now  applied  on  a 
large  scale  in  America.  The  depth  and  the  number  of  the  rifle- 
grooves  varied  according  to  the  calibres,  but  the  relation  between 
these  three  elements  was  constant,  and  the  same  system  of  grooves, 
deep  and  few  in  number,  was  applied  to  guns  of  diiferent  con- 
structions. In  the  Parrott  guns  the  spiral  of  the  grooves  was 
closer  near  the  muzzle  than  at  the  bottom  of  the  bore ;  it  was 
hoped  that  by  this  means  the  ball  would  have  an  increased  rotary 
motion  :  but  this  was  the  cause  of  numerous  accidents  and  of  great 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  303 

irregularity  in  ilie  fire,  as  the  projectile  frequently  refused  to  fol- 
low the  last  turn  of  the  groove.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war 
the  precipitate  haste  with  which  it  was  necessary  to  manufacture 
guns  was  especially  felt  in  its  effects  on  the  system  of  rifling, 
which  was  very  defective ;  thus  at  the  siege  of  Yorktown  a  hun- 
dred-pounder Parrott  gun,  which  had  attracted  attention  by  the 
irregularity  of  its  fire,  was  examined  after  some  time,  when  it  was 
discovered  that  those  in  charge  had  forgotten  to  clean  the  rifle- 
grooves,  the  roughness  of  which  disturbed  the  course  of  the  pro- 
jectiles. 

The  form  and  the  mode  of  impulsion  both  gave  rise  to  a  great 
number  of  different  systems.  INIr.  Parrott  placed  upon  the  base 
of  the  ball  a  sort  of  reversed  cup  of  soft  iron,  in  which  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  gases  determined  the  impulsion.  For  large  cal- 
ibres he  substituted  for  this  cup  a  copper  ring  enveloping  the  base 
of  the  projectile,  which  under  the  pressure  of  the  same  gases  took 
form  as  a  packing  {hourrelei)  in  the  grooves ;  this  process  being 
found  insufficient,  projections  were  cut  on  the  ring  to  facilitate  the 
impulsion,  a  sort  of  medium  between  the  system  of  expansion 
and  that  of  flanges  {ailettcs). 

Mr.  Schenkl  gave  to  the  base  of  his  projectile  the  form  of  a 
fluted  cone  and  covered  it  with  a  piece  of  papier-mach6,  which 
stretched  in  slipping  upon  the  cone,  and  was  forced  thus  very  ex- 
actly into  the  grooves.  This  papier-mach6,  having  more  tenacity  • 
than  lead,  gave  to  the  projectile  its  rotary  movement,  after  which 
it  might  fall  to  the  ground  without  danger  to  those  near  the  gun, 
or  it  remained  attached  to  the  projectile  without  affecting  its 
equilibrium.  Owing  to  the  conical  form  of  its  base,  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  the  projectile  was  in  front  of  the  centre  of  the  long 
axis,  which  secured  the  steady  and  exact  flight  of  a  well-feathered 
arrow.  The  only  fault  of  the  papier-mache  was  that  it  swelled 
with  dampness,  but  an  envelope  of  zinc  remedied  that  completely ; 
and  the  Schenkl  projectile  is  the  one  to  which  the  experience  of 
the  war  was  most  favorable.  Many  systems  were  tried  to  use 
lead  in  the  form  of  an  envelope,  ring,  or  ailette,  but  they  all  failed 
from  the  impossibility  of  making  the  metal  adhere  uniformly  to 
the  surface  of  the  ball. 

During  the  first  stag-es  of  the  war  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish 


304  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

between  the  relative  merits  of  different  projectiles,  the  defects  in 
the  construction  of  most  of  them  not  allowing  any  satisfactory 
experiment  to  be  made.  Thus,  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  when 
after  several  months  of  campaigning  an  inspection  was  made  of 
the  shells  which  had  been  furnished  in  enormous  quantities  by 
private  establishments,  it  was  found  that  the  inside  of  a  large 
portion  of  them  was  defective ;  the  cavity  containing  the  powder 
not  being  in  the  middle,  the  centre  of  gravity  was  displaced  and 
imparted  an  irregularity  of  motion  to  the  projectile  which  deprived 
the  gun  of  all  precision  of  aim. 

This  carelessness,  which  should  not  be  severely  criticised  when 
it  is  considered  what  efforts  it  required  to  create  such  vast  ma- 
terials within  a  few  months,  and  which  was  moreover  soon  rem- 
edied, was  especially  felt  in  the  construction  of  the  fuse,  the  most 
delicate  of  all  the  engines  of  war.  The  importance  of  the  fuse 
has  increased  with  that  of  the  shell ;  it  imparts  to  this  projectile 
all  its  effectiveness ;  if  the  fuse  is  defective,  the  shell  becomes 
powerless.  The  solid  ball  is  of  but  little  importance  on  a  battle- 
field, and  in  our  thin  order  of  ranks  makes  no  more  victims  than 
a  simple  rifle  bullet.  The  case  is  very  different  with  hollow  pro- 
jectiles, especially  the  formidable  Shrapnell  shell,  which  was 
universally  adopted  by  both  Federals  and  Confederates.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  at  a  short  distance  nothing  is  more  effective  than 
the  grape-shot,  but  its  field  of  operation  is  too  limited  to  be  often 
of  decided  importance  in  a  battle. 

The  Shrapnell  shell,  when  it  bursts  at  the  right  time,  propel- 
ling all  the  bullets  it  contains  in  the  shape  of  a  fan  before  it,  is 
the  most  terrible  instrument  of  war  that  modern  artillery  pos- 
sesses, and  will  always  secure  a  great  advantage  to  those  who 
know  best  how  to  handle  it ;  for  it  produces  all  the  effects  of 
grape-shot  at  the  extreme  range  of  ordinary  projectiles.  But  all 
its  effectiveness  depends  upon  the  precision  with  which  the  fuse 
is  regulated,  so  as  to  cause  it  to  burst  in  the  air  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  few  metres  in  front  of  the  line  of  the  troops  to  be 
reached. 

In  fact,  the  percussion  fuse,  which  takes  fire  on  coming  in  con- 
tact with  a  hard  substance  and  is  easily  constructed,  cannot  be 
advantageously  used  with  the  Shrapnell ;  for  if  those  projectiles 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  305 

only  burst  on  touching  the  ground,  most  of  the  shot  they  contain 
would  bury  itself  in  the  earth  instead  of  opening  upon  the  enemy's 
lines  like  a  sheaf.  The  graduated  fuse,  the  only  eifective  one  in 
guch  a  case,  must  be  both  sufficiently  delicate  to  burn  regularly 
during  the  desired  number  of  seconds,  and  yet  simple  enough  to 
be  regulated  amid  the  excitement  of  the  battle. 

When  spherical  projectiles  are  employed,  or  conical  shells 
with  flanges  {ailettes),  which  have  a  certain  play  in  the  bore  of  the 
piece,  the  flame  of  the  powder  itself,  enveloping  the  ball,  lights 
the  end  of  the  fuse  graduated  according  to  the  distance.  But 
this  cannot  be  for  projectiles  which  exactly  fill  all  the  grooves 
and  do  not  permit  the  flame  to  reach  the  head  of  the  fuse.  It 
was  tried  in  vain  to  envelop  them  in  collodion  to  carry  the  flame 
to  that  part  of  the  shell :  this  preparation  was  stripped  oiF  before 
it  could  be  set  on  fire.  Recourse  was  then  had  to  the  English 
system,  called  the  concussion  system :  the  shock  caused  by  the 
departure  of  the  projectile  detaches  a  small  piece  of  metal,  which, 
slipping  into  a  tube  placed  within  the  fuse,  strikes  and  fires  a 
fulminating  primer.  The  fuse  is  thus  completely  closed  on  the 
outside ;  but  it  must  be  seen  how  difficult  it  is  to  make,  in  impro- 
vised factories,  millions  of  such  complicated  instruments,  and  how 
defective,  before  some  experience  is  gained  in  making  them,  they 
must  be  as  to  precision. 

Besides  practical  inventions,  there  were  also  seen  some  fantasti- 
cal machines,  such  as  the  cannon-revolver,  which  will  probably 
figure  one  of  these  days  in  our  own  armies,  but  which  at  that 
time  was  only  dangerous  to  those  who  served  it.  There  were  seen 
some  ridiculous  specimens,  as,  for  instance,  a  gun  lighter  than  its 
own  ball,  made  out  of  an  enormous  ingot,  whose  recoil  was  con- 
sequently greater  than  the  motion  of  the  projectile  itself.  We 
will  mention,  finally,  a  new  engine  of  destruction,  which  received 
the  nickname  of  coffee-mill,  and  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
first  attempt  at  making  mitrailleuses.  This  was  a  large  rampart- 
gun,  whose  open  breech  was  surmounted  by  a  funnel,  which  was 
filled  with  cartridges;  these  cartridges  were  composed  of  solid 
steel  tubes  containing  the  charge,  which  were  successively  dropped 
into  the  open  space  of  the  breech  by  means  of  a  crank  ;  a  hammer, 
moved  by  this  crank,  struck  a  percussion-cap  i)laced  at  the  bottom 

Vol.  I.— 20 


306  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  the  cartridge,  and  caused  the  discharge ;  after  this  discharge  the 
tube  fell  into  a  box,  from  which  it  was  taken  to  reload.  This 
machine  fired  one  hundred  shots  per  minute,  and  threw  ounce 
balls,  with  great  precision,  to  a  distance  of  seven  or  eight  hundred 
metres ;  it  was  drawn  with  its  caisson  by  a  single  horse.  By 
means  of  a  j)ivot  like  a  pump-handle  the  gun  was  aimed  without 
interrupting  the  continuous  stream  of  balls ;  and  this  arm,  handled 
by  two  cool-headed  men,  might  have  proved  very  effective  in  de- 
fendino;  a  breach  or  defile.  But  althouo-h  Mr.  Lincoln  recom- 
mended  its  adoption,  and  had  even  made  a  trial  of  it  with  his 
own  hands,  it  was  never  used  during  the  war ;  and  the  coffee-mills, 
which,  with  a  few  alterations,  might  have  taken  the  place  of  our 
mitrailleuses,  were  sold  after  the  peace  as  old  iron,  for  eight  dol- 
lars each. 

We  have  only  spoken  of  rifle  cannon ;  they  were  the  only  guns 
in  fashion,  like  the  zouaves'  uniforms  for  infantry.  The  imagina- 
tion of  the  volunteers  exaggerated  their  importance,  and  their  very 
novelty  inspired  the  inexperienced  soldiers  of  the  American  armies 
with  confidence.  Fortunately,  the  artillery  officers  did  not  share 
this  excessive  infatuation,  and  they  retained  for  the  service  of  the 
army  a  certain  number  of  brass  field  howitzers,  smooth  bore, 
which  rendered  the  utmost  service  during  the  entire  war.  In 
fact,  as  the  wooded  country,  where  the  fighting  had  to  be  done, 
rendered  it  almost  impossible  for  the  artillery  to  become  engaged 
at  long  distances,  the  rifle  cannon  was  frequently  deprived  of  its 
advantages.  On  the  battle-fields  of  America  the  gun  easiest  to 
handle,  the  strongest,  and  the  most  readily  loaded,  which,  at  a 
moment's  notice,  could  substitute  grape-shot  for  the  shell,  was 
also  the  most  effective.  An  experience  differing  from  that  of 
European  wars,  where  armies  can  ordinarily  fight  at  a  distance, 
showed  that  smooth-bore  guns  satisfied  all  these  conditions;  a 
large  number  of  them  were  cast,  and  no  general  ever  had  occa- 
sion to  regret  having  secured  them  for  his  artillery. 

The  field  materiel  was  thus  found  to  be  composed  of  smooth- 
bore twelve-pounders,  of  three-inch  wrought-iron  guns,  and  of 
bar-guns  three  to  four  and  a  half  inches  in  diameter.  The 
greatest  variety  was  to  be  found  in  guns  of  heavy  calibre.  Be- 
sides the  old  mortars,  forty-eight  pounders,  and  large  cast-iron 


IHE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  307 

howitzers,  called  columbiads,  or  Dalilgren  guns,  there  were  seen 
rifled  cannons  constructed  in  the  manner  we  have  already  stated. 
These  were  wrought-iron  guns,  four  inches  and  a  half  in  diam- 
eter of  bore,  much  heavier  than  the  hooped  guns  of  the  same 
diameter,  and  throwing  forty-pound  balls.  There  were  Parrott 
guns,  one  hundred  and  two  hundred  pounders ;  and,  finally,  some 
enormous  cast-iron  guns,  intended  for  forts  and  for  the  navy,  cast 
on  the  Rodman  plan,  with  a  diameter  of  fifteen,  and  even  of 
twenty,  inches.  By  means  of  iron  carriages  running  over  in- 
clined planes,  controlled  by  brakes  and  a  strong  pivot  fastened 
to  the  platform,  these  gigantic  machines  could  easily  be  managed 
by  five  or  six  men.  We  shall  indicate  the  effect  they  produced 
in  telling  of  the  numerous  sieges  which  characterized  that  war. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  state  here  that  in  calculating  the  relations 
existing  between  the  calibre  of  their  heaviest  guns,  the  weight  of 
the  ball,  and  that  of  the  charge  of  powder,  the  Americans  departed 
from  the  principles  adopted  in  Europe,  and  particularly  in  Eng- 
land. Having  neither  the  time  nor  the  means  to  give  their  heavy 
rifled  guns  the  strength  of  those  of  Armstrong  or  of  Krupp,  but 
being  able  to  construct  them  of  as  large  a  calibre  as  they  desired, 
they  reduced  the  charges  of  powder  to  an  eighth,  and  even  a 
tenth,  of  the  weight  of  the  ball.  Owing  to  the  large  dimensions 
of  their  guns,  they  were  able  to  produce  results  then  entirely  new, 
although  they  have  been  surpassed  since.  Thus,  Avith  a  gun  not 
able  to  bear  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  charge  of  an  Armstrong 
gun,  and  throwing  the  same  ball,  tliey  obtained  for  this  ball  a 
velocity  only  one-half  less  than  that  which  the  latter  piece 
would  have  given;  and  to  batter  a  wall  in  breach,  they  suc- 
ceeded, by  means  of  very  large  projectiles  impressed  with  a  less 
initial  velocity,  in  bringing  to  the  work  of  destruction  a  force 
equal  to  that  of  a  ball  of  smaller  calibre  impressed  with  a 
greater  velocity. 

In  this  chapter  it  has  been  our  purpose  to  show  the  material 
resources  which  the  two  armies  were  going  to  put  in  operation. 
We  have  now  seen  those  of  the  Federal  army.  The  Confederate 
government  could  not  count  upon  the  industry  and  commerce  of 
the  rebel  States  to  supply  its  troops  with  provisions,  equipments, 
and  arms  to  the  same  extent  as  its  adversary.     But  at  the  outset 


308  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  the  war  they  possessed  a  very  great  advantage.  As  we  have 
stated  elsewhere,  Mr.  Floyd,  Secretary  of  War  under  President 
Buchanan,  had  taken  care  to  send  to  the  South  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  thousand  muskets,  which,  being  added  to  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  already  in  the  arsenals  of 
Charleston,  Fayetteville,  Augusta,  Mount  Vernon,  and  Baton 
Rouge,  secured  a  complete  armament  for  the  first  Confederate 
armies  sufficient  both  in  quantity  and  quality.*  If  the  mobiliza- 
tion of  the  first  levies  was  sometimes  delayed,  this  was  caused  either 
by  impediments  arising  in  an  administration  as  yet  deficient  in  ex- 
perience, or  by  the  rival  claims  of  the  States  to  the  distribution 
of  the  arms,  and  also  by  the  want  of  certain  details,  especially 
percussion-caps,  the  manufacture  of  which  had  not  as  yet  been 
organized.  But  the  war  once  begun,  the  Confederate  government 
— thanks  to  the  activity  of  its  administrative  departments,  the 
zeal  of  private  individuals,  and  the  supplies  of  materials  it  re- 
ceived from  Europe,  notwithstanding  the  blockade — never  found 
itself  short  either  of  muskets,  cannons,  ammunition,  or  military 
accoutrements.  The  North,  which  always  cherished  the  hope 
that  this  indispensable  material  would  not  reach  her  adversary, 
and  that  the  want  of  it  would  prevent  him  from  continuing  the 
struggle,  became  convinced  of  her  error  when  the  latter  had  laid 
down  his  arms. 

We  have  stated  that  in  the  South  every  man  who  had  the 
means  was  in  possession  of  a  gun  or  a  revolver.  On  their  enlist- 
ment the  volunteers  brought  their  arms  with  them ;  those  who 
did  not  join  the  army  either  gave  or  sold  them  to  the  govern- 
ment; everything  was  turned  to  account,  and  even  double  bar- 
relled shot-guns  were  provided  with  bayonets.  There  were  no 
private  establishments  for  manufacturing  arms  in  the  South; 
the  industry  of  the  North  had  hitherto  supplied  the  whole  Union  ; 
the  Federal  government,  which  possessed  two  establishments  of 
this  kind,  had  conformed  to  the  constant  traditions  by  placing 
one  at  Springfield,  in  the  North,  and  the  other  at  Harper's  Ferry, 

*  The  conduct  of  Secretary  Floyd  is  referred  to  at  the  close  of  General  J.  E. 
Johnston's  "  Narrative,"  with  a  view  to  exonerate  him  from  these  charges.  See 
pp.  426  and  427  of  that  work.— Ed. 


THE  MATMiEL   of  WAR.  309 

in  the  South.  The  latter  establishment  was,  thej-efore,  the  only 
one  to  be  found  in  the  insurgent  States,  which  gave  it  a  great 
importance  in  the  estimation  of  the  Confederate  leaders,  and 
which  accounts  for  the  haste  with  which  they  sought  to  seize  it 
at  the  moment  when  Virginia  seceded.  We  know  how  it  w'as 
snatched  from  them  by  fire.  The  destruction  of  that  fine  estab- 
lishment was  a  great  loss  to  the  government  of  Washington,  but  a 
still  greater  loss  to  the  Confederates,  who  had  expected  to  find  there 
considerable  supplies,  and  especially  all  the  necessary  implements 
for  the  manufacture  of  muskets.  A  few  machines  only  were 
saved  from  the  fire  and  forwarded  to  Richmond,  where  they 
were  soon  put  in  use.  The  Confederates  set  to  work  without 
delay  to  establish  such  factories  as  they  stood  in  need  of.  Nearly 
all  the  States  erected  some  at  their  own  expense,  which,  although 
at  first  simply  under  the  general  control  of  the  central  govern- 
ment, were  eventually  placed  under  its  exclusive  direction.  Work- 
shops for  the  remodelling  of  old  guns  and  the  manufacture  of 
minie  rifles  were  soon  established  in  Memphis,  New  Orleans, 
Nashville,  Gallatin,  and  finally  at  Richmond  and  in  many  other 
south-eastern  cities. 

The  Southern  States  obtained,  moreover,  supplies  of  arms  and 
ammunition  from  Europe.  During  the  first  months  of  the  war 
they  were  enabled  to  accomplish  this  without  any  great  difficulty, 
notwithstanding  the  blockade  of  their  coasts  which  had  been 
ordered  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  By  degrees  this  blockade  became  more 
effective,  but  the  extent  of  the  Southern  coasts,  their  numerous 
ports,  and  the  facilities  afforded  by  steam  to  blockade-runners 
of  light  draught,  which  took  advantage  of  a  dark  night  to  slip 
between  the  Federal  cruisers,  never  allowed  it  to  become  abso- 
lute. The  enormous  difference  in  value  between  the  cotton  accu- 
mulated in  the  depots  of  the  South  and  the  small  quantities 
which  reached  the  Liverpool  market  on  the  one  hand,  and  be- 
tween ordinary  commodities  in  Europe  and  in  the  Confederate 
ports  on  the  other,  is  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  that 
blockade;  but  as  the  high  protective  tariff  favored  the  growth 
of  smuggling,  so  in  the  same  manner  the  difference  above  men- 
tioned was  the  most  powerful  incentive  to  the  hazardous  traffic 
which  was  carried  on  in  spite  of  the  blockade.     In  reserving  to 


310  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

itself  the  monopoly  of  cotton  the  Confederate  government  had 
secured  the  means  of  regulating  and  entirely  controlling  the 
contraband  trade  thus  established  with  England.  It  compelled 
all  the  blockade-runners  to  supply  it  with  arms  by  refusing  cot- 
ton to  those  who  did  not  bring  over  a  quantity  of  that  material 
proportionate  to  their  tonnage,  cotton  being  the  only  article  that 
could  assure  them  considerable  profit  in  their  perilous  return 
trips.  These  arms,  purchased  with  the  money  obtained  through 
the  loan  negotiated  in  England,  and  for  which  this  very  cotton 
was  a  guarantee,  were  entrusted  to  them  by  the  agents  of  the 
Confederate  government  in  Europe.  The  exact  amount  of  these 
importations  will  never  be  known,  for  the  transactions  were  con- 
ducted with  great  secrecy ;  but  it  was  currently  reported  in  the 
South  that  during  the  first  year  of  the  war  three  hundred  thou- 
sand muskets  were  brought  over  from  Europe,  with  one  thousand 
charges  for  each  musket,  and  that  one  single  ship,  the  Bermuda, 
had  a  cargo  of  sixty-five  thousand.  Those  muskets  manufactured 
either  at  Liege  or  at  Birmingham  were  selected  with  much  more 
care  than  the  arms  destined  for  the  Federals,  for  in  tlie  struggle 
between  the  agents  of  the  two  parties  to  secure  the  best  materials 
the  Confederates  had  generally  the  advantage. 

The  maUriel  of  the  artillery  was  obtained  in  the  same  manner. 
Mr.  Floyd  had  not  forgotten  the  armament  of  the  Federal  forts 
situated  in  the  South,  while  leaving  garrisons  in  them  too  weak 
for  their  defence.  Different  cities  furnished  cannon  which  had 
been  in  their  possession  since  the  Mexican  war.  In  short,  a  few 
months  sufficed  to  enable  the  State  governments  to  organize  foun- 
dries, the  management  of  which  was  entrusted  to  foremen  of 
Northern  -birth,  a  certain  number  of  whom  had  not  left  the  work- 
shops of  the  South  at  the  time  of  secession,  native  mechanics  not 
having  the  requisite  skill  for  that  task.  Among  these  foremen 
some  had  adopted  the  prejudices  of  the  slaveholders  or  yielded 
to  the  temptation  of  enormous  wages ;  others  were  kept  in  the 
places  they  were  doomed  to  occupy  by  fearful  threats.  In  the 
mean  time,  spies  were  sent  to  visit  the  manufactories  of  the  North 
for  the  purpose  of  making  drawings  of  the  machines  used  in  the 
construction  of  cannon,  so  as  to  set  up  similar  ones  in  the  estab- 
lishments which  had  just  been  erected.     A  certain  number  of 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  311 

machines  were  also  brought  from  England  ;  and  one  of  tlie  prin- 
cipal manufacturers  of  that  country  actually  presented  to  the 
Confederacy  on  one  occasion  a  complete  cargo  of  those  precious 
implements.  Unfortunately  for  his  proteges,  that  v.!argo  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Federals,  who  used  it  for  their  own  profit.  New 
Orleans  had  its  own  foundry  of  brass  guns.  Messrs.  Street  & 
Hungerford  of  Memphis  manufactured  Parrott  guns  of  every 
calibre.  At  Nashville  the  iron-mills  of  Brannan  &  Co.,  con- 
structed on  the  plan  of  those  of  Fort  Pitt  in  the  North,  manu- 
factured field-pieces  of  cast  iron.  The  large  and  costly  machines 
of  this  establishment  followed  the  Confederate  armies  in  their 
successive  retreats,  accompanied  by  the  printing-presses  of  the 
secession  journals,  and  were  stationed  first  at  Chattanooga,  then 
at  Atlanta,  and  finally  at  Augusta.  The  most  important  iron- 
mills  in  the  South  were  the  Tredegar  works,  near  Richmond ;  at 
this  establishment  cannon  and  projectiles  of  every  calibre  were 
manufactured.  Brass  guns  were  rare  and  greatly  in  demand; 
cities  and  churches  contributed  their  bells ;  private  houses  were 
stripped  of  every  article  of  copper  they  possessed,  from  a  boiling- 
pot  to  a  brass  candlestick.  Cannon  from  England  were  also 
imported  to  a  considerable  extent.  A  few  Armstrong  guns  which 
had  run  the  blockade  were  used  in  arming  the  batteries  along  the 
coast ;  and  Mr.  Whitworth  manufactured  a  large  number  of  his 
beautiful  hexagonal  guns  of  cast  steel  for  the  Confederates,  pre- 
tending that  he  was  executing  an  order  for  the  emperor  of 
China,  so  as  not  to  excite  the  suspicions  of  the  Federal  cruisers. 

The  greatest  part  of  the  artillery  which  the  Confederates 
received  from  Europe,  however,  issued  from  the  workshoi>s  of 
Captain  Blakeley,  of  whom  we  shall  speak  presently.  Some 
time  after,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  there  were  still  to  be  seen 
in  those  establishments  immense  piles  of  projectiles,  of  which, 
during  the  prosperous  period  of  blockade-running,  every  vessel 
sailing  for  Southern  ports  carried  a  number  as  ballast.  This 
establishment  had  become  one  of  the  principal  depots  and  the 
best  arsenal  of  the  Confederates. 

The  cannon  used  in  the  Southern  armies  were  generally  con- 
structed on  the  same  model  as  those  of  the  Federal  artillery. 
The  Confederates  displayed  the  same  preference  for  the  expan- 


312  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

sion  system  as  their  adversaries.  But  their  most  experienced 
oificei-s  also  adhered  to  the  brass  twelve-pounder  howitzer  with 
smooth  bore;  these  cannon,  taken  from  the  arsenals  or  cast  since 
the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  formed  an  important  part  of 
their  field  artillery.  The  remainder,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
Whitworth  guns,  was  composed  of  pieces  constructed  on  the 
Parrott  model.  The  maUrid  of  heavy  calibre  was  more  varied; 
there  were  to  be  found  all  the  old  smooth-bore  brass  guns,  the 
Dahlgren  howitzers,  and  the  rifled  cannon  of  Brooke  and  Blakeley. 

The  Brooke  guns,  so  called  after  their  inventor,  only  differed 
in  one  single  particular  from  the  Parrott  gun  :  the  wrought-irou 
jacket  which  enveloped  it  extended  to  the  muzzle  instead  of 
stopping  at  the  trunnions.  These  guns  were  rapidly  and  easily 
constructed  and  very  cheap.  The  combination  of  two  metals, 
one  ductile  and  the  other  brittle,  sometimes  caused  them  to 
explode,  but  this  defect  was  not  sufficient  to  cause  their  condem- 
nation, because,  in  view  of  the  extraordinary  difficulties  which 
surrounded  the  Confederacy,  it  was  important  above  all  to  create 
an  immense  armament.  The  entire  coast  bristled  with  fortifica- 
tions ;  batteries  were  erected  at  the  entrance  of  the  smallest  creeks 
and  all  along  the  line  of  the  large  rivers ;  in  short,  strong  earth- 
works, entrenched  camps,  and  defensive  lines  of  every  description 
sprang  up  wherever  the  two  armies  found  themselves  in  presence 
of  each  other;  each  detachment  surrounded  its  positions  with 
works ;  every  town  needed  its  fortified  enclosure,  and  new  points 
requiring  to  be  defended  were  daily  discovered.  As  fast  as  these 
works  were  completed  it  was  necessary  to  find  heavy  guns  with 
which  to  arm  them. 

The  South  possessed  no-^metallurgical  department  of  industry 
like  the  North  to  meet  such  a  demand.  Out  of  841,550  tons  of 
iron  produced  by  the  United  States  in  1856,  the  slave  States  only 
contrilnited  about  80,000  tons,  and  nearly  one-half  of  this  por- 
tion, or  36,563  tons,  were  produced  by  Kentucky,  which  the  Con- 
federates never  occupied  in  peace  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to 
turn  her  mineral  wealth  to  account.  The  portion  of  iron  pro- 
duced by  the  insurgent  States,  therefore,  only  amounted  to  42,952 
tons,  or  the  twentieth  part  of  the  total  production  of  the  Union. 
But  this  iron,  smelted  with  wood,  was  of  a  superior  quality, 


THE  3iat£:riel  of  war.  313 

M^hicli,  fortunately  for  tlie  Confederate  artillery,  compensated  for 
the  carelessness  in  the  manufacture  of  cannon  and  the  inexperi- 
ence of  those  who  directed  the  operations. 

The  Blakeley  guns,  on  the  contrary,  which  had  come  from 
England,  were  not  only  constructed  of  superior  materials,  but 
with  the  greatest  care,  and  were  held  in  high  repute,  even  in  Eng- 
land, for  their  excellent  qualities.  Before  landing  at  Charleston 
they  had  passed  through  many  hands.  The  metal  was  prepared 
at  Sheffield,  where  the  Swedish  iron,  after  having  been  melted  in 
the  furnace  and  then  run  into  troughs  [creusets),  was  then  cast 
into  rings,  which  were  forged  by  the  immense  trip-hammers  of 
Firth.  Then  taken  to  London,  in  the  Blakeley  shops  these  rings 
were  put  together,  carefully  fitted,  turned,  bored,  and  finally 
rifled ;  they  thus  combined  the  strength  of  a  homogeneous  metal 
like  soft  steel  with  the  perfection  of  construction  of  cannon  com- 
posed of  several  pieces.  Those  of  large  calibre  were  loaded  at 
the  muzzle,  and  their  grooves  were  adapted  to  various  kinds  of 
projectiles.  These  grooves  had  only  a  slight  twist  and  a  medium 
depth  ;  their  number,  varying  according  to  the  calibre,  did  not  ex- 
ceed twelve  in  pieces  seven  inches  and  a  half  in  diameter.  In 
some  of  the  Brooke  guns  the  grooves  were  cut  in  inclined  planes. 
The  variety  of  the  projectiles  used  with  these  guns  was  very  great. 
A  single  Federal  regiment — the  First  Connecticut  Artillery — 
picked  up,  among  the  batteries  in  which  it  served  in  1864  near 
Richmond,  thirty-six  different  kinds  of  balls  fired  by  the  Confed- 
erates. Durino;  the  long;  sie<>;e  of  Charleston  the  defenders  of  that 
place  loaded  their  old  smooth-bore  brass  pieces  with  projectiles  of 
an  elongated  shape.  Although  the  precision  of  aim  of  these  enor- 
mous cylindrical  missiles  was  not  remarkable,  yet,  at  short  dis- 
tances, their  initial  velocity  gave  them  considerable  force  of  pene- 
tration, and  at  times  they  did  great  harm  to  the  iron-clad  vessels 
of  the  Federals.  But  these  cannon  could  not  always  bear  the 
strain  required  to  throw  off  such  heavy  balls,  and  in  the  long  run 
many  of  them  burst. 

The  projectiles  manufactured  in  the  South  for  rifled  guns  re- 
sembled those  of  the  Parrott  model ;  the  Confederates  also  fre- 
quently used  Parrott  projectiles,  obtained  from  some  captured 
ammunition  train  or  park  of  artillery  carried  off  after  a  victory. 


314  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

The  Blakeley  projectile,  Avhich  greatly  resembled  them  in  its 
construction,  produced  the  best  results.  It  has  at  its  base  a  plate 
of  copper,  fastened  by  three  screws,  the  sides  of  which,  bent 
inward,  give  way,  and  are  crushed  into  the  grooves  by  the  expan- 
sive force  of  the  gases.  'In  spite  of  the  small  surface  which  the 
parts  thus  forced  present,  it  is  sufficient  to  give  the  rotary  motion 
to  the  entire  mass.  This  projectile  can  thus  adapt  itself  to  differ- 
ent kinds  of  grooves,  is  easily  introduced  into  the  gun,  and  can 
bear  the  jolting  of  transportation  with  impunity.  Its  excellent 
qualities  w^ere  demonstrated  from  the  beginning  of  the  war,  at  the 
siege  of  Yorktown,  where  an  old  cast-iron  sixty-four  pounder 
rifled,  and  placed  in  barbette  upon  one  of  the  bastions,  was  used 
in  firing  Blakeley  shells  weighing  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  to 
a  distance  of  more  than  three  thousand  metres,  upon  the  Federal 
line  of  batteries.  Those  who  serve  as  a  target  to  the  fire  of  the 
enemy  have  ample  opportunities  to  judge  of  the  precision  of  his 
aim.  As  soon  as  Yorktown  was  evacuated  the  besiegers  went 
to  look  at  the  cannon  whose  power  they  had  tested,  but  which 
had  been  silent  for  two  days.  It  was  found  lying  on  the  ground 
broken  to  pieces ;  it  had  ended  its  career  by  an  explosion,  after 
demonstrating  how  skilful  mechanics  and  resolute  soldiers  can 
utilize  old  pieces  which  would  otherwise  have  been  condemned  as 
unfit  for  service.  The  rest  of  the  military  materiel  of  the  Confed-. 
erates,  ammunition,  equipments,  etc.,  was,  like  their  cannon,  partly 
produced  at  the  South  and  partly  imported  from  Europe. 

The  chief  thing  required  was  powder.  Charcoal  was  not  want- 
ing ;  the  caves  of  the  Alleghanies  abounded  in  saltpetre ;  the  re- 
fineries of  Louisiana  furnished  sulphur,  Avhich  they  used  in  re- 
fining sugar,  and  of  which  they  had  large  stores.  With  these 
materials  the  government  w^as  able  to  manufacture  an  article  of 
powder  somewhat  coarse,  but  of  a  sufficiently  good  quality.  Its 
principal  powder-mill  was  at  Dahlonega,  in  Georgia ;  its  manu- 
factories of  percussion-caps  in  Richmond ;  its  cartridge-factory 
first  in  Memphis  and  then  at  Grenada.  Thanks  to  the  activity 
of  these  establishments,  the  Confederate  armies  were  never  in 
want  of  ammunition.  The  government  never  thought  of  making 
use  of  the  cotton  which  it  controlled  for  war  purposes.  It  could 
not  procur<\  the  different  materials  necessary  for  the  manufacture 


THE  MATERIEL   OF  WAR.  315 

of  gun-cotton  (pyroxyle),  and  especially  of  nitric  acid ;  nor  had 
it  time  to  make  experiments  upon  that  powerful  but  dangerous 
agent. 

Nor  were  the  means  wanting  for  clothing  the  soldiers.  Texas 
furnished  leather.  Foreign  cloth  being  scarce,  its  absence  was 
amply  supplied  by  a  coarse  but  strong  stuff  called  homespun, 
made  on  the  plantations  and  exclusively  worn  by  the  blacks. 
This  cloth,  of  gray  verging  on  brown,  was  the  color  of  the  Con- 
federate uniform,  and  was  the  origin  of  the  name  gray-ba.c]<s, 
which  distinguished  the  Southern  soldiers  from  the  blue-bellies 
who  followed  the  Federal  flag.  The  more  elegant  among  the 
Confederate  officers  knew  how  to  set  oflP  the  simplicity  of  their 
gray  frock-coats  by  extreme  neatness,  but  at  best  they  could  not 
disguise  the  livery  of  slavery  which  chance  compelled  them  to 
wear.  May  we  not  see  in  this  a  mockery  of  fate,  or  ratlier  the 
decree  of  unerring  justice  which  compelled  the  proud  planters  to 
wear  on  the  field  of  battle  and  to  stain  with  their  own  blood  that 
very  garment,  the  symbol  of  servitude,  which  had  never  reddened 
save  under  the  lash  of  the  overseer  ? 

After  having  assembled,  organized,  and  equipped  the  Confed- 
erate armies,  the  next  thing  was  to  feed  them.  Furthermore,  it 
was  important  to  secure  the  means  of  subsistence  for  the  entire 
population  of  the  South,  which  was  then  in  the  condition  of  a 
besieged  city.  The  feeding  of  the  civil  population  became  an  es- 
sentially military  question.  It  was  the  more  serious  because  un- 
til then  the  South,  devoted  to  special  agricultural  pursuits,  had 
drawn  from  the  North  the  greatest  portion  of  the  flour  and  meat 
necessary  for  her  consumption ;  but  she  possessed  a  soil  adapted 
to  every  kind  of  agricultural  produce,  and  in  the  negro  race  the 
necessary  hands  to  continue  its  cultivation  while  the  whites  went 
to  the  war.  The  cotton-plant  soon  gave  place  to  wheat  and  corn, 
more  through  the  natural  effect  of  the  law  of  economy  than  in 
consequence  of  Mr.  Davis's  ordinances;  for  the  blockade  having 
caused  a  depreciation  in  the  value  of  cotton,  and  increased  the 
price  of  provisions,  self-interest  suggested  to  the'  planters  the  ex- 
pediency of  substituting  the  cultivation  of  cereals  and  the  raising 
of  cattle  for  their  former  productions.  If  this  interest  had  been 
different,  no  decree  of  the  Richmond  government  could  have  ef- 


316  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

fected  such  au  agricultural  revolution  in  the  South.  This  revolu- 
tion soon  secured,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  means  of  subsistence  to 
the  whole  Southern  population,  and  belied  the  predictions  accord- 
ing to  which  the  blockade,  by  starving  them  out,  would  bring 
them  to  terms.  But  the  very  abundance  of  these  new  produc- 
tions of  the  soil,  which  subsisted  the  Confederate  armies  during 
four  years,  facilitated,  on  the  other  hand,  the  operations  whi-ch 
were  to  render  their  adversaries  victorious  in  the  end.  In  fact,  as 
we  have  already  stated,  it  was  owing  to  the  provisions  which 
Sherman  found  in  Georgia  that  he  was  able  to  pass  rapidly  through 
that  vast  region  and  make  the  decisive  campaign  which  would 
have  been  impossible  in  a  country  destitute  of  all  resources.  A 
remedy,  therefore,  sometimes  brings  with  it  an  evil  greater  than 
that  which  it  is  intended  to  remove ;  and  the  Confederacy,  which 
seemed  at  first  in  danger  of  perishing  from  want,  found  itself,  on 
the  contrary,  delivered  up  to  the  invasion  of  its  enemies  by  the 
very  abundance  of  its  resources. 

These  details,  dry  but  important,  having  been  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  our  histc  ry,  we  shall  now  resume  the  narrative  of  mil- 
itary events. 


BOOK  lY.— THE   FIEST  AUTUMN". 


CHAPTER  I. 

LEXINGTON. 

WE  have  already  seen  the  strenuous  efforts  made  by  the  North 
to  create  armies  as  soon  as  the  defeat  of  Bull  Run  had  en- 
liglitened  her  people  regarding  the  difficulties  of  the  struggle  she 
had  undertaken.  The  South  derived  great  moral  and  material 
strength  from  her  victory ;  she  gained  eight  months'  time  to  or- 
ganize in  Virginia ;  the  prestige  of  success  gave  to  her  government 
unlimited  power,  and  to  its  agents  the  necessary  credit  to  borrow 
and  to  encourage  the  traffic  in  arms ;  her  soldiers  considered  them- 
selves for  some  time  invincible.  But  this  triumph  brought  many 
illusions  in  its  train ;  it  was  generally  believed  that  the  Yankees 
were  unable  to  make  another  effort ;  the  Southern  people  became 
convinced  that  their  despised  adversaries  were  about  to  give  up 
the  game,  that  the  recognition  of  the  new  Confederacy,  both  by 
Europe  and  the  Northern  States,  was  at  hand,  and  that  it  was 
useless,  therefore,  to  make  any  further  sacrifices  in  view  of  a 
struggle  which  could  not  be  prolonged.  The  number  of  enlist- 
ments diminished  at  once  in  a  striking  manner  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  it  was  most  important  to  place  the  armies  in  a  condition 
to  assume  the  offensive.  The  activity  of  the  administration  was 
relaxed  likewise,  and  the  equipment  of  troops  was  altogether  ne- 
glected. A  few  creatures  of  Mr.  Davis,  occupying  important 
positions,  embarrassed  the  commissary  department  by  their  inca- 
pacity. The  army  of  Virginia  was  in  want  of  horses  and  means 
of  transportation;  these  indispensable  resources  for  a  campaign 
were  only  furnished  in  a  dilatoiy  and  incomplete  manner.  The 
operations  which  it  might  have  attempted  either  on  the  line  of  the 
Potomac  or  in  West  Virginia,  while  the  Federal  army  was  yet 
unable  to  move  quickly,  were  thus  paralyzed,  and  Mr.  Pollard, 
the  historian  of  the  Confederates,  a  writer  equally  earnest  and 

317 


318  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

sincere  iii  behalf  of  the  South,  has  not  hesitated  to  say  that  the 
victory  of  Ball  Run  was  a  great  misfortune  for  her  cause. 

Along  the  immense  line  which  separated  the  hostile  parties, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  prairies  of  the  far  West,  however,  the 
effect  produced  by  the  conflict  of  July  21st  was  less  felt  in  propor- 
tion to  the  distance  from  the  spot  which  had  witnessed  it.  The 
State  of  Missouri  especially,  situated  beyond  the  Mississippi,  was 
a  kind  of  enclosed  battle-field,  where  the  struggle,  embittered  by 
old  animosities,  was  carried  on  with  scarcely  any  knowledge  of 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  fighting  in  the  neighboring  States. 

In  this  portion  of  the  narrative,  where  we  propose  to  relate  the 
military  events  which  occurred  during  the  period  intervening  be- 
tween the  first  defeat  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  its  new  en- 
trance in  the  field  in  the  spring  of  1862,  we  shall  begin  by  speak- 
ing of  the  war  of  which  the  distant  plains  of  Missouri  were  the 
theatre  during  the  latter  half  of  the  year  1861.  The  inveterate 
animosity  of  the  Abolitionists  and  the  pro-slavery  men  was  to 
impart  to  that  war  an  altogether  peculiar  character.  The  settlers 
from  the  North  and  from  the  South  were  scattered  over  the  whole 
surface  of  the  State.  The  former  were  in  the  majority  in  the 
northern  part  and  along  the  borders  of  the  Mississippi,  which  sep- 
arates Missouri  from  Illinois,  and  which  the  inhabitants  of  the 
latter  free  State  cross  yearly,  in  large  numbers,  on  their  way  to  the 
"West  to  seek  their  fortunes.  The  latter  predominated  along  the 
fertile  borders  of  the  Missouri  River,  which  flows  from  west  to 
east  through  the  country  to  which  it  gives  its  name ;  but  they 
were  so  completely  commingled  everywhere  that  not  a  town,  vil- 
lage, or  hamlet  could  be  found  which  was  not  divided  into  two 
hostile  camps.  To  the  westward,  along  the  boundary  of  the  great 
desert,  was  the  new  State  of  Kansas,  where,  after  many  bloody 
strifes  and  cruel  persecutions,  the  Abolitionists  had  finally  (!ome 
off  triumphant.  To  the  southward  extended  the  long  frontier  of 
Arkansas,  which  was  exclusively  occupied  by  pro-slavery  men 
devotedly  attached  to  the  Confederate  cause.  The  pioneers,  ad- 
venturers, and  outlaws  who  had  gone  to  seek  their  fortune  by  means 
more  or  less  legitimate  in  those  two  States,  yet  scarcely  under  cul- 
tivation, did  not  fail  to  challenge  each  other,  weapon  in  hand,  in 


LEXINGTON.  319 

Missouri ;  some  to  promulgate  their  political  convictions,  others  to 
gratify  their  passions  for  strife  or  plunder. 

Hostilities,  therefore,  broke  out  everywhere  at  once.  At 
nearly  every  point  or  the  territory  isolated  individuals,  small 
groups,  or  numerous  bands  began  to  make  war  on  their  own 
account,  seeking  only  to  satisfy  personal  hatred.  Tiiere  was  no 
longer  safety  to  be  found  anywhere.  Blood  flowed  in  every  spot, 
and  it  became  impossible  to  discriminate  between  an  act  of  war 
and  assassination.  Missouri,  however,  notwithstanding  her  isola- 
tion, was  not  neglected  by  the  belligerents.  They  had  little  cause 
to  trouble  themselves  about  what  was  taking  place  in  the  western 
part  of  that  State,  but  all  that  portion  of  it  adjacent  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi was  to  play  a  great  part  in  the  military  operations  of  which 
the  line  of  that  river  was  about  to  be  the  theatre.  The  Federals 
could  undertake  no  expedition,  either  into  Kentucky,  by  ascend- 
ing the  Tennessee,  or  against  Memphis  and  the  heart  of  the  Con- 
federacy, unless  they  were  masters  of  the  confluence  of  the  Mis- 
souri and  the  Ohio  with  the  Mississippi — that  is  to  say,  of  St. 
Louis,  of  Cairo,  and  of  that  portion  of  the  river  which  separates 
those  two  points.  The  left  bank  was  secured  to  them,  for  it  be- 
longed to  Illinois ;  to  control  the  right  bank,  generally  flat  and 
marshy,  it  was  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  occupy  strongly 
the  large  city  of  St.  Louis,  the  base  of  operation  of  all  water  ex- 
peditions into  the  centre  of  the  continent;  then  to  prevent-  the 
enemy  from  taking  possession  of  the  cliffs  of  Cape  Girardeau, 
whence  he  could  have  intercepted  the  navigation  of  the  river,  and 
from  occupying  the  positions  of  Bird's  Point  which  command  the 
tongue  of  land  upon  which  Cairo  stands.  General  Lyon,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  preserved  the  city  of  St.  Louis  to  the  Union,  and 
Cairo  had  been  garrisoned  by  Federal  troops  before  the  Confed- 
erates had  made  any  attempt  to  seize  it.  But  the  secessionists,  on 
seeing  the  best  portion  of  the  State  slipping  away  from  them,  no 
longer  contented  themselves  with  waging  a  partisan  war.  At  the 
call  of  Sterling  Price  all  those  who  had  made  the  long  Mexican 
campaigns  with  him  or  with  Doniphan,  or  who  had  many  times 
listened  to  the  exaggerated  descriptions  given  of  them,  hastened 
to  form  themselves  into  an  army,  intended  to  recapture  the  State 
from  the  Federal  troops,  under  the  name  of  "  Missouri  Guards." 


320  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

We  have  seen  how  Lyon,  on  the  18th  of  June,  dispersed  those 
first  assemblages  which  had  gathered  at  Booneville,  on  the  upper 
Missouri,  where  the  pro-slavery  element  predominated.  That 
success  was  by  no  means  decisive.  Price  had  an  immense  country 
before  him,  into  which  he  could  fall  back  in  perfect  safety  in  order 
to  rally  his  followers,  and  whence  he  could  emerge  suddenly  to 
attack  the  point  at  which  he  was  least  expected.  The  task  of 
Lyon  was  not  only  to  protect  the  great  strategic  points  situated 
upon  the  Mississippi,  but  also  to  keep,  as  far  as  possible,  the  State 
of  Missouri  under  Federal  sway,  so  as  to  prevent  the  Confeder- 
ates from  drawing  any  resources  from  it,  either  of  men,  cattle, 
grain,  materials  of  any  kind,  or  even  of  money,  which  that  State 
could  furnish.  With  the  small  number  of  men  at  his  disposal, 
this  was  a  singularly  difficult  task. 

The  northern  part  of  the  State,  lying  along  the  left  bank  of 
the  Missouri,  is  less  extensive,  and  could  give  him  no  serious 
uneasiness.  Although  the  secessionists  were  there  in  large  num- 
bers and  the  partisan  war  was  raging  with  all  its  horrors,  it  was 
too  remote  from  the  Confederate  States  to  receive  any  efficient 
support,  and  the  Federals  felt  sure  of  being  able  to  sustain  them- 
selves there  so  long  as  they  retained  possession  of  St.  Louis. 
The  principal  artery  of  that  region  is  the  railway  which  connects 
Hannibal,  on  the  Mississippi,  with  St.  Joseph,  on  the  Missouri, 
where  it  then  terminated  in  the  vicinity  of  the  yet  uncultivated 
lands  where  the  emigrant  settled  until  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion compelled  him  to  proceed  one  stage  farther  towards  the  inte- 
rior. The  southern  part  of  the  State  is  bounded  on  the  south 
and  west  by  the  frontiers  of  Arkansas  and  Kansas,  on  the  east 
by  the  Mississippi,  on  the  north  by  the  Missouri.  Near  the  last- 
mentioned  river  the  country  Is  fertile,  well  cultivated,  and  has 
considerable  population ;  the  remainder  is  traversed  by  the  only 
river  of  any  importance,  the  Osage,  which  comes  from  the  south- 
west to  empty  into  the  Missouri  a  little  below  Jefferson  City; 
there  are  numerous  tributaries  with  wooded  banks  which  give 
a  great  extension  to  the  Osage  valley.  The  Missouri  basin  is 
bounded  at  the  south  by  a  succession  o^ plateaux,  very  undulating 
and  Intersected  with  ravines,  which  connect  towards  the  south-west 
with  the  large  Arkansas  hills  known  by  the  name  of  Ozarh  Moun- 


LEXINGTON.  321 

tains.  These  undulations,  covered  here  and  there  with  brushwood, 
intersected  by  ravines  where  the  water  does  not  abound  in  summer, 
but  the  soil  of  which  readily  responds  to  the  cultivation  of  cereals, 
extend  in  a  north-easterly  direction,  traversing  nearly  the  whole 
State,  and  culminating  in  the  heights  of  Pilot  Knob,  in  the  midst 
of  the  lower  plains  which  border  the  Mississippi.  Beyond  this  point 
the  waters  run  southw^ardly  into  the  White  River.  This  vast 
region  only  possessed  three  trunk  lines  of  railway,  all  starting 
from  St.  Louis.  The  first  followed  a  westerly  direction  along 
the  line  of  the  Missouri,  passing  through  Jefferson  City,  and 
stopped  at  the  village  of  Scdalia  before  reaching  Kansas.  The 
second  followed  the  great  post-road  south-westwardly  which 
passes  by  Rolla,  Springfield,  and  Cassville,  and  terminates  at 
Fort  Smith,  in  Arkansas;  before  the  war  it  carried  the  Texas 
mail.  This  line  did  not  extend  beyond  Rolla,  about  two  hun- 
dred and  forty  kilometres  from  St.  Louis.  The  third,  of  about 
equal  length,  ran  southwardly  as  far  as  the  mines  in  the  vicinity 
of  Pilot  Knob.  Sedalia,  Rolla,  and  Pilot  Knob  were  therefore 
the  three  heads  of  lines  beyond  which  the  armies  could  only 
sustain  themselves  by  living  upon  the  country  or  by  employing 
immense  trains  to  convey  their  provisions. 

After  the  combat  at  Booneville,  Lyon  had  freed  the  whole  of 
the  Missouri  valley  and  prevented  Price  from  making  it  the  base 
of  his  operations.  The  State  legislature  and  Governor  Jackson 
had  fled  in  haste  from  Lexington,  forgetting  in  their  hurry  the 
government  seal,  together  with  a  considerable  amount  of  money. 
Price  himself  fell  l)ack  towards  the  southern  -part  of  the  State, 
but  he  was  not  the  man  to  be  daunted  by  a  first  reverse,  and  his 
name  alone  sufficed  to  rally  around  him  all  the  secessionists  of 
Missouri,  who  had  been  for  a  moment  discouraged  by  his  retreat. 
Choosing  his  own  time  to  make  sudden  attacks  upon  isolated 
Unionist  detachments,  and  retreating  whenever  he  had  cause  to 
apprehend  a  check,  he  trained  his  men  to  the  habits  of  partisan 
warfare,  and  procured,  at  the  exjiense  of  the  enemy,  all  the  arms, 
ammunition,  wagons,  and  provisions  of  which  he  was  entirely 
destitute.  So  that  when  he  reached  the  town  of  Neosho,  at  the 
south-western  angle  of  the  State,  after  a  long  and  fatiguing  retreat, 
he  had  a  body  of  troops  around  him  more  numerous  and  better 
Vol.  I.— 21 


322  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

equipped  than  that  with  which  he  had  left  the  banks  of  tiie  Mis- 
souri. In  drawing  near  to  the  Arkansas  frontier  he  knew  that 
he  should  j&nd  important  reinforcements  there.  In  fact,  General 
McCulloch  was  organizing  a  body  of  Confederate  troops  in  Ar- 
kansas, while  a  brigade  of  soldiers  from  that  State  was  forming 
under  General  Pearce ;  all  these,  assembled  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Ozark  Mountains,  were  to  enter  Missouri  to  support  Price. 
The  troops  of  the  latter  were  considerably  scattered ;  he  was  him- 
self encamped  at  Pools  Prairie,  between  Sarcoxie  and  Neosho; 
Governor  Jackson,  with  a  brigade  commanded  by  General  Par- 
sons, was  at  Lamar,  much  more  to  the  northward,  while  another 
brigade,  under  General  Rains,  which  had  been  left  behind  near 
Papinsville,  on  the  upper  Osage,  was  on  the  march  to  join  him. 

Lyon,  on  his  part,  was  preparing  to  follow  the  Confederates 
into  the  remote  districts  whither  they  had  retired,  by  marching 
from  Booneville  in  a  direct  line  toward  the  south ;  but  although 
his  little  army  did  not  number  more  than  twenty-seven  hundred 
men,  the  difficulty  in  obtaining  provisions  necessarily  caused 
delays,  and  he  was  obliged  to  have  an  enormous  supply  train  fol- 
lowing him.  One  of  the  detached  bodies  of  troops,  which  he  had 
organized  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  incursions  and  the  depre- 
dations of  partisans,  was  in  a  better  position  to  strike  the  enemy, 
whose  forces  were  still  scattered ;  and  the  enterprising  chief  who 
commanded  it  could  not  allow  such  an  opj)ortunity  to  escape  him. 
Colonel  Sigel,  a  German  officer,  Avith  two  regiments  and  two  bat- 
teries of  four  field-pieces  each — about  fifteen  hundred  men  in  all — • 
had  left  Holla  nearly  at  the  same  time  that  Lyon  was  marching 
upon  Booneville.  He  reached  Springfield  on  the  23d  of  June ; 
and  on  learning  that  the  Confederates  had  gone  southward,  he 
pushed  immediately  forward  in  the  hope  of  surprising  some  iso- 
lated detachment.  He  arrived  at  Sarcoxie  with  one  of  his  regi- 
ments on  the  28th,  but  Price,  having  abandoned  the  camp  of 
Pools  Prairie,  had  retired  beyond  Neosho.  After  occupying  this 
town,  Sigel  determined  to  go  and  attack  the  troops  under  Parsons 
and  Rains,  who  were  at  the  northward.  As  soon  as  he  had  formed 
his  column  he  took  the  line  of  march,  imprudently  leaving  a  com- 
pany of  infantry  at  Neosho  with  a  view  of  protecting  the  inhabit- 
ants in  the  event  of  the  return  of  the  Confederates,  but  their  pres- 


LEXINGTON.  323 

ence  was  in  leality  only  an  additional  inducement  to  the  latter  to 
return  thither  in  force. 

On  the  4th  of  July  Sigel  encamped  near  Carthage,  and  learned 
that  the  enemy,  numbering  from  four  to  five  thousand  men,  most 
of  whom  were  mounted,  occupied  a  position  on  the  Lamar  road, 
about  fifteen  kilometres  to  the  northward.  Notwithstanding  the 
disproportion  of  numbers,  he  determined  to  attack  them ;  and  on 
the  morning  of  the  5th  he  set  out,  followed  at  a  distance  by  his 
supply-train.  After  crossing  the  stream  called  Dry  Creek  he 
met  the  combined  forces  of  Parsons  and  Rains ;  who  had  taken 
their  position  upon  the  summit  of  an  elevated  piece  of  ground 
overlooking  the  Catthage  and  Lamar  road,  and  were  waiting  for 
him.  The  first  line  of  the  Confederates  consisted  of  about  twenty- 
five  hundred  men,  the  infantiy  in  the  centre,  the  cavalry  on  the 
wings,  and  a  strong  reserve  in  the  rear.  The  combat  began  at 
once.  The  Federals  were  very  inferior  in  numbers  and  had  no 
cavalry,  but  their  soldiers  were  properly  handled,  better  armed 
than  their  opponents,  and  their  artillery  was  far  superior  to  that 
of  the  enemy,  which  consisted  of  three  old  guns  loaded  with 
pieces  of  scrap-iron  by  way  of  projectiles.  The  fire  of  musketry 
and  artillery  continued  for  some  time  without  either  of  the  parties 
gaining  ground  ;  the  most  serious  losses,  however,  were  on  the  Con- 
federate side.  The  latter  decided  at  last  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  advantages  which  their  numerous  cavalry  gave  them.  This 
cavalry  threatened,  by  a  flank  movement,  to  seize  the  supply-train 
of  the  Federals,  and  to  cut  them  off  from  the  road  to  Carthage. 
Sigel,  being  obliged  to  order  a  retreat,  fell  back  upon  the  train  and 
covered  it,  and  recrosscd  Dry  Creek,  where  the  enemy's  cavalry 
tried  in  vain  to  disturb  him.  Without  allowing  his  lines  to  be 
broken  or  too  closely  pressed,  he  finally  reached  Carthage,  where 
he  defended  himself  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to  enable  his 
artillery  to  occupy  the  heights  which  were  to  protect  his  march 
beyond  that  village.  In  spite  of  the  Confederate  cavalry,  to 
which  he  could  offer  no  opposition,  and  which  harassed  him  on 
every  side,  he  succeeded  toward  evening  in  reaching  some  Avoods, 
which  afforded  him  shelter,  and  by  a  night  march  he  arrived  at 
Sarcoxie,  fortunate  in  having  been  able  thus  to  escape,  without 
great  losses,  from  an  enemy  more  numerous  and  more  vigilant 


324  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

than  himself.  He  had  only  thirteen  men  killed  and  thirty-one 
wounded ;  but  on  the  following  day  the  company  which  he  had 
left  at  Neosho  was  surrounded  by  a  superior  force^  and,  as  might 
have  been  easily  foreseen,  captured  to  a  man.  In  organizing  this 
expedition  the  Federals  committed  an  error  which  was  frequently 
repeated  afterwards — that  of  neglecting  the  cavalry.  In  a  region 
like  Missouri,  where  one  has  to  travel  long  distances  before  en- 
countering a  village,  and  where  the  country  is  generally  open  and 
rich  in  forage,  the  principal  part  in  a  campaign  belongs  to 
mounted  men,  who,  like  the  conquerors  of  California  and  of  New 
Mexico,  can,  in  case  of  necessity,  dismount  and  fight  on  foot, 
musket  in  hand.  We  shall  see,  therefore,  thdt  among  the  Con- 
federate armies  of  the  far  West  the  cavalry  almost  invariably 
formed  one-half  of  their  effective  force. 

In  the  mean  time,  Lyon  had  taken  up  his  march  on  the  3d  of 
July.  He  was  trying,  like  Price,  to  increase  his  numbers  on  the 
way,  and  he  counted  especially  upon  Kansas  for  reinforcements. 
That  State,  in  fact,  could  not  fail  to  furnish  a  considerable  con- 
tingent to  the  Federal  cause,  inasmuch  as  all  the  pioneers  who 
had  settled  there  were  accustomed  to  exchange  the  pick  for  the 
musket.  The  most  turbulent  among  them  gathered  in  irregular 
bands  around  Jim  Lane,  their  most  celebrated  leader,  who  had 
represented  them  at  Washington,  and  who  now  bore  the  title  of 
general.  Elsewhere,  Major  Sturgis,  taking  the  field  at  the  head 
of  a  better  organized  corps,  numbering  about  three  thousand  men, 
had  joined  Lyon  on  the  7th  on  the  banks  of  Grand  River,  a 
tributary  of  the  Osage.  Notwithstanding  this  reinforcement,  the 
Federals  found  the  difficulties  of  the  route  to  increase  in  propor- 
tion as  they  advanced,  the  whole  army  being  compelled  to  cross 
Grand  River  on  a  single  ferry-boat,  no  other  conveyance  being 
within  reach.  Finally,  on  the  9th,  they  reached  the  banks  of 
the  Osage,  not  far  from  Osceola,  where  they  received  tidings  of 
Sigel's  fight  at  Carthage,  five  days  before.  Had  the  small  Fed- 
eral band  commanded  by  the  latter  succeeded  in  extricating  it- 
self from  the  dangerous  position  in  which  it  was  placed  ?  Had  it 
been  able  to  reach  Springfield,  or  had  it  been  cut  oflf  and  sur- 
rounded by  the  numerous  cavalry  of  the  enemy?  Lyon  coukl 
not  tell.     Extremely  uneasy  concerning  the  fate  of  his  lieutenant, 


LEXINGTON.  325 

he  changed  his  route  and  proceeded  as  rapidly  as  he  could  to  his 
assistance.  He  followed  directly  the  road  leading  to  Springfield — 
a  point  which  he  could  make  the  base  of  all  the  operations  he 
might  have  to  undertake.  But  roads  are  scarce  in  Missouri. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  lines  kept  more  or  less  in  order,  like 
the  post-road  which  passes  through  Springfield,  they  are  traced 
out  at  random  across  the  prairie  by  the  wheel-ruts  of  wagons 
which  carry  grain  to  the  villages  where  markets  are  held.  In  the 
districts  covei-ed  with  forests  these  road-tracks  only  consist  in 
clearings  rudely  cut  through  thick  woods,  which  wind  in  zigzag 
shape  from  farm  to  farm,  without  ever  following  the  same  direc- 
tion. It  was  in  the  midst  of  one  of  these  forests  that  Lyon's  sol- 
diers took  up  their  line  of  march  on  the  morning  of  the  10th, 
during  the  prevalence  of  a  most  oj)pressive  heat.  The  tortuous 
roads  they  met  with  proved  to  be  an  impediment  rather  than  an 
assistance.  They  had  to  open  a  direct  passage  through  thickets, 
swamps,  scarped  ravines,  rocks,  and  streams,  but  the  thought  of 
going  to  the  assistance  of  comrades  who  were  in  danger  sustained 
the  strength  of  that  small  band ;  and  when  it  came  to  a  halt,  to- 
ward three  o'clock,  to  take  a  little  rest,  it  had  already  marched 
forty-four  kilometres.  Toward  evening  it  started  again  with  re- 
newed courage,  and  did  not  stop  until  the  following  morning  at 
break  of  day,  eighty  kilometres  from  the  point  where  it  had 
crossed  the  Osage.  The  men  were  completely  ^yorn  out  by  this 
extraordinary  march,  but  the  good  news  of  Sigel's  return  to 
Springfield  soon  made  them  forgot  all  their  hardships.  Two 
short  days'  journey  took  them  to  that  town,  where  the  Federal 
forces  w^ere  assembled. 

Lyon  arrived  in  Springfield  on  the  13th  of  July,  where  he 
stopped.  His  bold  movements  had  driven  the  Confederates  back 
into  the  south-western  angle  of  Missouri ;  but  they  were  there  in 
force,  and  the  little  Federal  army  could  not  think  of  pursuing 
them.  This  army  was,  in  fact,  much  weakend  by  the  fatigues  of 
the  campaign  it  had  just  gone  through ;  and  the  term  of  service  of 
the  volunteers  who  had  enlisted  for  three  months,  after  the  fall  of 
Fort  Sumter,  was  beginning  to  expire.  Every  day  a  certain  num- 
ber from  among  this  class  left  their  respective  regiments  to  return 
home,  while  others  impatiently  counted  the  few  days  which  yet 


326  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

remained  beft)re  they  could  be  liberated.  Their  pay  was  in  arrear; 
their  worn-out  garments  had  not  been  replaced ;  their  rations  were 
not  plentiful ;  so  that  they  were  unwilling  to  re-enlist,  and  no  re- 
inforcements came  to  fill  up  the  gaps  which  were  daily  made  in 
the  ranks  of  the  army.  It  was  useless  for  Lyon  to  remonstrate ; 
he  could  effect  nothing.  He  had  lately  been  placed  under  the 
orders  of  McClellan  ;  but  the  latter,  being  entirely  absorbed  by  the 
campaign  he  had  undertaken  in  AVest  Virginia,  could  not  aid  him 
in  any  way.  Lyon  finally  learned  at  Springfield  that  the  depart- 
ment of  the  West  had  just  been  placed  under  the  immediate  com- 
mand of  a  new  chief.  General  Fremont. 

We  have  already  mentioned  Fremont  in  connection  with 
the  conquest  of  California,  where,  through  his  daring,  intelli- 
gence, and  good  fortune,  he  played  a  responsible  part.  Since 
that  time  he  had  been  the  candidate  of  the  Abolitionists  for 
the  presidency  of  the  republic.  Subsequently,  in  1861,  Mr. 
Lincoln  conferred  upon  him  the  highest  rank,  that  of  major- 
general  in  the  regular  army,  from  Mdiich  he  had  been  removed 
in  consequence  of  a  severe  decision.  This  appointment  had 
prejudiced  the  largest  portion  of  the  old  regular  officers  against 
him ;  they  were  disposed  to  criticise  the  actions  of  a  chief  who 
undertook  to  perform  a  task  so  new  to  him.  Those  who  were 
about  to  be  placed  under  his  immediate  command  dreaded  above 
all  the  influence  of  a  certain  set  of  men  by  whom  the  conqueror 
of  California  had  been  surrounded  in  the  official  positions  he  had 
occupied,  as  well  as  in  the  business  enterprises  he  had  been  en- 
gaged, and  who  had  the  reputation  of  not  being  over-scrupulous 
in  matters  of  an  administrative  character. 

Fremont  had  lingered  a  considerable  time  in  New  York  after 
his  appointment,  deaf  to  all  the  solicitations  of  Lyon,  who  kept 
asking  constantly  for  assistance.  At  last  he  took  his  departure 
after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  and  arrived  in  St.  Louis  on  the  2Gth 
of  July. 

Notwitlistanding  the  reproaches  of  certain  persons,  he  was  very 
popular  in  the  West  among  all  those  settlers  to  whom  he  had 
opened  new  paths  across  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  who  were 
indebted  to  him  for  the  magnificent  domain  of  California.      He 


LEXINGTON.  327 

was  known  to  be  brave,  bold,  devoted  to  the  abolition  cause,  and 
therefore  much  was  expected  from  him. 

But  the  task  he  had  to  accomplish  in  no  way  resembled  the  ad- 
venturous expeditions  in  which  his  companions  and  himself  had 
been  successful  by  daily  staking  their  lives  without  a  care  for  the 
morrow.  The  commander  of  the  department  of  the  West  had  to 
create  and  organize  an  entire  army,  with  its  administration  and 
its  materiel,  without  having  at  his  disposal  any  of  the  resources 
which  seemed  indispensable  for  such  labor.  He  had  to  embrace 
a  vast  territory  at  a  single  glance,  to  watch  over  at  once  all  the 
points  which  it  was  deemed  important  to  guard ;  he  was  not  to 
allow  himself  to  be  surprised  from  any  quarter,  and  he  had  to 
make  up  for  the  insufficiency  of  his  forces  by  the  promptness  of 
his  movements  and  the  correctness  of  his  calculations.  These 
were  matters  entirely  new  to  General  Fremont. 

The  difficulties  against  which  he  had  to  struggle  were  immense. 
The  greatest  portion  of  the  troops  of  which  he  could  dispose  in 
Missouri  were,  like  those  of  I^yon,  three  months'  volunteers,  the 
last  of  whom  were  to  be  discharged  Avithin  a  fortnight.  The 
latter,  not  having  received  their  regular  pay,  refused  everywhere 
to  re-enter  the  service.  It  is  true  that  a  certain  number  of  sol- 
diers, enlisted  for  three  years,  were  beginning  to  come  forward,  but 
they  were  utterly  without  instruction.  Arms  were  wanting  to 
equip  and  drill  them ;  all  the  muskets  which  came  from  the  East- 
ern factories  or  which  arrived  at  Atlantic  ports  from  Europe 
were  kept  in  Washington  by  the  government,  whose  absorbing 
care  was  to  protect  the  capital.  It  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
that  Fremont  succeeded  in  procuring  some  poor  Austrian  mus- 
kets for  his  troops.  He  was  subsequently  blamed  for  this  pur- 
chase, and  most  unjustly,  although  the  price  paid  was  undoubt- 
edly exorbitant ;  but  he  was  justified  by  necessity.  Illinois,  being 
placed  under  his  jurisdiction,  sent  him  a  few  regiments,  but  they 
were  badly  organized,  and  the  men  who,  after  proper  drilling, 
might  have  made  good  soldiers,  were  only  an  additional  encum- 
brance, owing  to  the  bad  quality  and  scarcity  of  arms.  The  sys- 
tem of  accounts  was  in  the  greatest  disorder,  and  the  intervention 
of  Fremont,  who  was  but  little  accustomed  to  administrative  for- 
malities, only  served  to  increase  the  confusion.    The  Federal  cof- 


328  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

fers  were  nearly  empty ;  and  while  at  hetid quarters  everybody 
signed  orders  for  expenses  without  authority,  the  disbursing  offi- 
cers refused  to  make  any  transfers  of  funds.  Hence  the  perpetual 
conflicts  which  embarrassed  the  service  and  delayed  the  supplies 
of  which  the  army  stood  in  need.  To  all  these  difficulties  were 
added  the  demands  of  the  central  government,  which  interfered 
with  the  measures  adopted  by  Fremont.  Thus,  for  instance,  a  few 
days  after  his  arrival,  he  was  ordered  by  Scott  to  send  immedi- 
ately to  Washington  five  thousand  men,  formed  into  regiments, 
armed,  and  equipped.  This  would  rob  him  of  the  only  organized 
forces  at  his  disposal ;  consequently,  this  order,  prompted  by  the 
disquietude  which  followed  the  battle  of  Bull  E-un,  was  soon  re- 
voked, but  it  nevertheless  caused  the  suspension  for  several  days 
of  all  the  movements  of  troops  in  the  department  of  the  West. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  defeat  of  the  Federals  in  Virginia  had 
revived  the  confidence  and  daring  of  the  secessionists  throughout 
the  State  of  Missouri.  The  Confederate  leaders  saw  the  num- 
ber of  their  adherents  increase  in  every  direction.  In  the  north- 
ern section  numerous  bands  were  organizing,  persecuting  the 
Unionists,  and  extending  their  incursions  into  the  State  of  Iowa. 
Along  the  borders  of  the  Missouri  a  few  partisan  bands  kept  the 
Federal  garrisons  of  Jefferson  City,  Booneville,  and  Lexington  in 
constant  alarm.  In  the  south-west  McCulloch  and  Pearce  had 
crossed  from  Arkansas  into  Missouri ;  they  were  ready  to  sus- 
tain Price,  and  rendered  the  situation  of  Lyon  at  Springfield  very 
precarious,  while  the  positions  occupied  by  the  Federals  in  the 
south-east  were  also  seriously  threatened.  Confederate  bands  of 
partisans,  gathered  and  organized  by  Jefferson  Thompson,  showed 
themselves  sometimes  in  the  vicinity  of  Pilot  Knob,  trying  to  cut 
the  railway,  and  sometimes  in  the  neighborhood  of  Cape  Girar- 
deau or  Bird's  Point.  At  the  same  time  considerable  forces  were 
assembling  in  East  Tennessee,  and  a  small  army  under  General 
Pillow  had  already  passed  over  from  Tennessee  to  New  Madrid, 
in  Missouri,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Mississippi,  where  it  was 
preparing  to  take  the  field.  The  positions  commanding  the 
large  navigable  streams  of  the  centre  of  the  continent  seemed  to 
be  in  danger.  Cairo,  the  most  important,  was  indeed  strongly 
defended,  and  its  fortifications  well  supplied  with  cannon;  but 


LEXINGTON.  329 

with  the  exception  of  twelve  hundred  men,  its  garrison  was  to  be 
discharged  on  the  7th  of  August,  and  it  Avas  stated  the  gunboats 
constructed  at  Memphis  by  the  Confederates  would  soon  come  to 
attack  that  place.  It  was  important,  above  all,  to  ensure  its 
safety.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  object,  Fremont  himself 
started  from  St.  Louis  on  the  2d  of  August  with  nearly  four 
thousand  men,  intended  for  the  occupation  of  Cairo  and  Bird's 
Point — a  reinforcement  amply  sufficient,  and  which  he  besides 
took  care  to  magnify  in  the  eyes  of  the  inhabitants  of  St.  Louis 
by  embarking  them  on  a  larger  number  of  steamers  than  was 
necessary. 

But  this  operation  once  accomplished,  the  most  important  thing 
to  do  was  to  extricate  Lyon  from  the  difficult  position  in  which 
he  was  placed  by  sending  him  reinforcements.  There  were  two 
fine  regiments  at  Rolla  which  might  have  been  moved  towards 
Springfield,  and  replaced  by  newer  troops  taken  from  St.  Louis  to 
guard  the  line  of  railways.  He  might  also  have  diminished  the 
garrisons  placed  along  the  Missouri,  have  limited  himself  to  the 
occupation  of  Jefferson  City,  have  employed  fewer  troops  in  pur- 
suit of  bands  which  could  not  be  taken,  and  have  sent  to  Spring- 
field the  forces  thus  rendered  available.  But  Fremont  seemed  in- 
capable of  changing ;  he  maintained  all  the  posts  stationed  along 
the  line  of  the  Missouri,  The  Confederate  corps  of  Green  having 
pushed  as  far  as  Athens,  in  Northern  Missouri,  where  it  had  a 
bloody  encounter  with  the  Unionists  on  the  5th  of  August,  he  sent 
General  Pope  with  the  troops  then  in  Illinois  into  that  section 
of  the  State.  When  he  ordered  the  regiments  stationed  at  Rolla 
to  proceed  to  Springfield,  he  failed  to  send  them  the  necessary 
materiel  with  which  to  make  that  march ;  and  while  he  took  no 
effective  step  to  support  Lyon,  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind 
to  recall  him  to  the  reai',  but  left  him  at  Springfield  without 
instructions. 

The  position  of  this  general,  in  the  mean  time,  was  becoming 
more  and  more  painful.  The  resources  of  the  country  were 
exhausted,  provisions  were  beginning  to  fail,  the  equipments  of 
the  men  were  worn  out,  and  many  among  them  had  no  shoes. 
The  wagons  he  had  sent  to  Rolla  to  bring  supplies  had  by  a  fatal 
mistake  been  despatched  to  St.  Louis,  so  that,  in  order  to  obtain 


330  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

provIsioDS,  lie  was  obliged  to  send  for  the  supply-trains  of  Kan- 
sas to  come  to  him  with  an  escort.  The  movements  of  the  enemy, 
however,  determined  him  to  take  the  oflPensive  in  order  to  fore- 
stall them  if  possible ;  he  was  in  hopes  of  surprising  the  several 
Confederate  bands  who  were  preparing  to  operate  against  him, 
before  they  could  have  time  to  unite.  These  corps,  composed  of 
Price's  Missourians,  McCulloch's  Confederate  division,  and  some 
Arkansas  brigades  under  Pearce  and  McBride,  had  selected  Cass- 
ville  as  their  rendezvous.  Price,  leaving  the  south-western  angle 
of  the  State,  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  reached  that  town  on 
the  28th  of  July,  where  on  the  following  day  all  the  Confederate 
forces  were  assembled,  to  the  number  of  more  than  twelve  thou- 
sand men,  half  of  whom  were  mounted,  with  about  fifteen  pieces 
of  cannon.  On  the  1st  and  2d  of  August  the  whole  army  moved 
in  the  direction  of  Springfield,  following  the  post-road.  Four 
hundred  mounted  Missourians  under  Rains  cleared  the  road. 
McCulloch  followed  with  great  precaution,  fearing  to  venture 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  other  corps  of  the  army. 

Lyon  had  left  Springfield  exactly  on  the  1st  of  August  with 
all  the  forces  at  his  disposal,  amounting  to  about  five  thousand 
men.  After  two  days'  march,  which  the  extreme  heat  made  very 
fatiguing,  he  met  in  the  valley  of  Dug  Springs,  thirty  miles  from 
Springfield,  Rains's  Missourians,  accompanied  by  a  few  reinforce- 
ments which  the  latter  had  procured  in  haste.  A  company  of 
regular  infantry,  one  hundred  and  fifty  mounted  men  belonging 
to  the  4th  Cavalry,  and  two  pieces  of  a  regular  battery  formed 
the  advance  of  the  small  Federal  army,  and  alone  took  part  in 
the  engagement.  The  conflict  was  short.  While  the  infantry 
were  firing  upon  the  troops  that  confronted  them,  the  cavalry  per- 
ceived a  detachment  preparing  to  make  a  flank  movement.  The 
men  immediately  seized  their  carbines  and  opened  fire  upon  it. 
But  a  subaltern  officer,  tired  of  remaining  inactive,  ordered  a 
charge.  A  portion  of  the  mounted  men  dashed  forward  at  once ; 
the  rest  followed,  and  the  enemy  were  thrown  into  confusion.  In 
the  mean  time,  the  shells  of  the  two  Federal  field-pieces  routed 
the  Confederate  cavalry,  which  was  thinking  to  repeat  the  flank 
movement  it  had  executed  during  the  fight  at  Carthage. 

The  Federals  remained  masters  of  the  field.     This  skirmish 


LEXINGTON.  331 

had  only  cost  a  few  killed  and  wonnded  on  both  sides.  Rains 
had  been  thrown  back  upon  McCulloch's  division  at  Cave  Springs. 
The  latter  remained  inactive,  believing  Lyon  to  be  infinitely 
stronger  than  he  really  was,  and  not  daring  to  go  out  to  meet  him. 
The  Federal  general,  on  his  part,  after  proceeding  as  far  as  Cur- 
ran,  on  the  3d  of  August,  twelve  kilometres  beyond  Dug  Springs, 
also  came  to  a  halt.  His  army,  exhausted  by  the  heat,  was  in 
want  of  food  ;  the  term  of  service  of  several  regiments  was  about 
to  expire,  and  he  hoped  to  find  reinforcements  at  Springfield. 
He  had  also  ascertained  that  the  enemy  had  formed  a  junction  of 
their  detachments,  and  that  he  could  no  longer  expect  to  surprise 
them  separately.    On  the  6th  of  August  he  re-entered  Springfield. 

Lyon's  movements  disconcerted  McCulloch,  who,  fancying  tliat 
he  was  confronted  by  a  superior  force,  was  desirous  to  fall  back. 
Price,  on  the  contrary,  insisted  upon  continuing  the  march,  and 
requested  McCulloch,  if  he  was  going  to  forsake  him  thus,  to  give 
him  at  least  his  muskets,  so  that  he  might  arm  the  volunteers 
who  were  joining  him  from  all  parts,  and  whom  he  was  obliged 
to  leave  behind  for  want  of  equipments.  Pending  this  contro- 
versy, a  despatch  arrived  from  General  Polk,  their  superior 
officer,  ordering  McCulloch  to  invade  Missouri.  The  latter  then 
consented  to  accompany  Price,  on  condition  that  that  general 
should  place  himself  under  his  orders. 

The  effective  force  of  the  Confederate  army  was  five  thousand 
three  hundred  infantry,  six  thousand  cavalry,  a  portion  of  which 
was  poorly  equipped,  with  fifteen  pieces  of  artillery — about  twelve 
thousand  men  in  all.  On  the  4th  of  August  this  army,  forming 
three  columns  under  McCulloch,  Pearce,  and  Price,  put  itself  once 
more  en  route,  and  made  a  night  march  in  the  hope  of  yet  sur- 
prising Lyon  near  Dug  Springs.  But  in  spite  of  all  their  speed 
the  Confederates  could  not  come  uj)  to  him,  and  on  the  following 
day,  the  5th,  McCulloch  was  obliged  to  halt  his  wearied  soldiers 
on  the  banks  of  Wilson's  Creek,  about  sixteen  kilometres  from 
Springfield,  near  to  the  post-road.  The  supply-trains  did  not 
arrive  until  two  days  after,  and  for  twenty-four  hours  the  soldiers 
had  nothing  to  eat ;  for  the  last  ten  days  they  had  only  received 
half  rations ;  they  had  neither  salt  nor  meat,  and  were  compelled 
for  bare  subsistence  to  y-o  into  the  fields  and  "ather  the  ears  of 


332  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

corn ;  they  had  no  blankets,  their  clothes  were  in  rags  and  their 
shoes  worn  out.  It  Avas  necessary  to  give  them  some  rest. 
Finally,  on  the  9th,  McCulloch  ordered  another  night  march,  by 
means  of  which  he  expected  to  arrive  before  Springfield  on  the 
following  morning  before  Lyon  could  be  apprised  of  his  approach. 
But  he  had  to  deal  with  a  bold  and  vigilant  adversary.  While 
McCulloch  was  induced  by  the  rain  and  darkness  to  defer  his  move- 
ment, the  Federal  general  was  preparing  to  surprise  him  in  turn. 
Lyon  had  already  once  before  made  every  preparation  to  go 
and  seek  in  his  own  camp  the  adversary  who  pressed  him  so 
3lose,  and  had  subsequently  abandoned  the  idea.  But  his  position 
was  becoming  every  day  more  critical.  The  time  had  passed 
when  he  could  have  retired  to  Rolla  or  fallen  back  upon  the 
Osage  without  being  molested.  The  enemy  was  close  upon  him, 
and  had  at  last  become  conscious  of  his  numerical  superiority. 
He  had  a  powerful  cavalry,  to  which  Lyon  could  only  oppose  a 
few  squadrons ;  and  that  cavalry  would  have  rendered  the  retreat 
of  the  feeble  column  impossible,  encumbered  as  it  was  by  an 
enormous  supj)ly-train.  Besides  falling  back  without  fighting, 
the  Federals  would  thereby  give  the  signal  for  the  uprising  of  the 
secessionists  all  along  the  road  over  which  they  had  to  pass. 
There  was  only  one  course  to  adopt  in  this  emergency ;  it  was  at 
once  wise  and  bold :  this  was  to  strike  suddenly  a  vigorous  blow 
to  cover  the  movement  in  rear  toward  Roll  a.  Without  even 
fighting  the  enemy,  sufficient  losses  might  be  inflicted  upon  him 
to  prevent  him  from  disturbing  that  movement,  and  there  was 
only  needed  a  fortunate  chance  to  paralyze  him  by  destroying  his 
supply-train.  After  much  hesitation  a  council  of  war  was  con- 
vened, at  which  General  Sweeny  alone  advised  the  offensive. 
Lyon  gave  orders  for  the  march  on  the  evening  of  the  9th,  He 
left  at  Springfield  only  non-combatants,  and  took  with  him  a 
force  of  about  five  thousand,  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  whom 
were  mounted,  and  twelve  cannon.*     The  brigade  of  Sigel,  with 

*  The  total  force  of  his  army  consisted  of  the  following  troops:  The  1st 
brigade,  Major  Sturgis,  5  regnlar  squadrons,  4  regular  companies,  2  Missouri 
companies,  1  battery,  884  men;  the  2d  brigade,  Sigel,  3d  and  4tli  Missouri,  2 
batteries,  1420  men;  the  3d  brigade,  Andrews,  1st  Missouri,  4  companies  of  reg- 
ular ini'antry,  1  battery,  1264  men ;  the  4th  brigade,  Deitzer,  2  Kansas  regi- 
ments, 1st  Iowa,  2300  men ;  t»'{al,  5868  men. 


LEXINGTON.  333 

a  single  battery,  Avas  ordered  to  proceed  in  a  southei  ly  direction ; 
then,  after  crossing  Wilson's  Creek  considerably  below  the  en- 
emy's positions,  to  turn  sharply  to  the  right,  and  having  per- 
formed that  movement  during  the  night  to  fall  by  daybreak 
upon  the  rear  of  the  Confederate  camps,  the  long  line  of  which 
extended  into  the  valley,  following  the  sinuosities  of  the  stream. 
Lyon,  with  the  three  other  brigade.^,  numbering  about  four  thou- 
sand men,  intended  to  approach  Wilson's  Creek  near  the  post- 
road,  and  as  soon  as  day  dawned  to  attack  the  enemy  in  front, 
and,  without  giving  him  time  to  form,  to  throw  all  his  camps  into 
confusion.  This  double  manoeuvre  was  extremely  well  executed 
On  the  morning  of  the  10th,  notwithstanding  the  still  prevail- 
ing darkness,  Lyon  on  one  side  and  Sigel  on  the  other  found 
themselves  in  sight  of  the  Confederate  encampments.  The  latter 
kept  a  very  poor  watch ;  the  orders  and  counter-orders  of  the 
previous  evening  had  worn  them  out,  and  after  drawing  in  the 
outposts  they  had  neglected  to  replace  them.  Lyon,  therefore, 
who  was  the  first  to  make  the  attack,  was  able  to  reach  the  ad- 
vance fires  around  which  the  enemy  had  passed  the  night,  without 
a  shot.  The  stream  of  Wilson's  Creek,  occupied  in  that  part  of 
its  flow  by  McCulloch,  runs  nearly  from  south  to  north,  and  on 
approaching  the  road  it  makes  an  angle  and  follows  a  south- 
easterly direction.  The  valley  watered  by  this  stream  is  bounded 
on  the  right  by  abrupt  declivities,  and  on  the  left  by  hills  sloping 
gradually  down  and  intersected  by  various  transversal  ravines. 
It  was  upon  these  hills  that  those  of  the  Confederates  who  were 
not  encamped  in  the  valley  had  taken  position.  Lyon's  column, 
formed  of  Captain  Plummer's  regular  battalion,  the  First  Kansas, 
and  the  First  Missouri  regiments,  reached  Wilson's  Creek  by  de- 
scending these  hills.  Plummer  crossed  the  stream  at  once  in 
order  to  protect  the  left  of  the  Federals,  who,  on  forming  a  line  of 
battle  upon  the  right,  found  themselves  in  front  of  a  ravine  wliere 
the  second  brigade  of  Rains's  division  had  just  encamped.  That 
general,  surprised  by  the  volleys  of  musketry,  had  barely  had  time 
to  follow  the  precipitate  retreat  of  his  soldiers,  and  to  inform  Price 
and  McCulloch  of  this  unexpected  attack.  There  was  great  flurry 
in  the  Confederate  army  and  among  its  chiefs.  While  Rains  was 
re-forming  his  line  on  the  heights  to  the  left  of  Wilson's  Creek, 


33-4  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Price  hastened  to  set  the  rest  of  his  troops  occupying  positions  ic 
the  neighborhood,  under  arras,  and  rushed  with  about  twenty-five 
hundred  men  and  one  battery  to  the  aid  of  the  combatants,  whom 
the  Federals  were  beginning  to  dislodge  from  their  positions. 
During;  this  time  Plummer's  regulars  crossed  the  stream  and  ad- 
vanced,  deploying  in  the  fields  on  the  right ;  but  two  regiments 
of  Arkansas  cavalry,  who  had  dismounted,  supported  by  a  Lou- 
isiana regiment,  soon  came  rushing  upon  them.  The  small  body 
of  regular  troops  was  obliged  to  fall  back  before  so  large  a  force, 
and  it  would  have  been  annihilated  if  two  guns  posted  on  the 
heiffhts  to  the  left  of  the  river  had  not  arrived  in  time  to  check 
the  aggressive  movement  of  the  Confederates  in  the  valley. 

The  battle  is  fought  with  ardor  on  both  sides;  Price  and  Mc- 
Culloch  rally  the  soldiers  who  have  not  yet  been  able  to  join  their 
ranks.  Lyon  leads  successively  into  action  all  the  regiments  com- 
posing his  little  band ;  his  soldiers  fight  bravely,  while  his  ar- 
tillery displays  a  great  superiority  ovQr  that  of  the  enemy,  which 
is  badly  served,  and  the  fire  of  which  is  very  irregular.  As  we 
have  just  seen,  this  artillery  has  already  saved  the  regular  troops 
compromised  in  the  valley.  A  section  of  Totten's  battery  replies 
with  great  effect  to  a  few  guns  posted  by  the  enemy  on  the  heights 
commanding  the  right  bank  of  Wilson's  Creek,  for  the  purpose 
of  enfilading  the  Federal  line.  The  rest  of  the  Union  artillery 
supports  the  attack  of  the  infantry.  The  point  at  issue  is  to  carry 
the  crest  of  a  hill  from  which  Lyon's  troops  are  separated  by  a 
bend,  where  the  brigade  they  had  surprised  was  encamped,  and 
beyond  which  lay  the  undulating  plateau  which  the  Missourians 
had  occupied  for  some  days.  The  ground,  covered  with  brush- 
wood and  scattered  trees,  renders  manoeuvring  difficult.  The 
Confederates,  recovered  from  their  first  confusion,  are  superior  in 
numbers,  and  they  cleverly  avail  themselves  of  the  advantages 
which  the  nature  of  the  ground  gives  to  the  defensive.  The  First 
Missouri  has  suffered  cruelly.  The  Federal  troops  are  several 
times  driven  back  in  disorder,  but  the  artillery  still  supports  them. 
The  Confederates  try  to  surprise  them  by  displaying  a  Federal 
flag  under  cover  of  which  to  advance ;  but  Totten,  who  has  al- 
lowed them  to  approach,  discovers  the  disloyal  trick  in  time,  and 
a  few  rounds  of  grape  severely  punish  the  authors  of  it  for  their 


LEXINGTON.  o35 

temerify.  The  Federals  take  advantage  of  this  new  confusion 
thrown  into  the  ranks  of  their  adversaries  to  make  another  effort 
upon  the  right,  and  the  Second  Kansas  carries  a  portion  of  the 
crest.  The  Confederates,  with  their  lines  thus  broken,  are  no 
longer  able  to  defend  the  rest  of  that  position,  and  fall  back  upon 
a  few  hillocks  situated  in  rear.  The  fight  slackens  ;  it  is  now 
about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

During  this  time  Sigel  had  strictly  followed  out  the  instruc- 
tions of  his  chief.  At  break  of  day  he  was  approaching  the 
southernmost  side  of  the  Confederate  encampments,  occupied  by 
the  Texas  troops,  and  came  suddenly  upon  a  large  party  of  sol- 
diers who  had  separated  themselves  from  their  companions  to  go 
in  search  of  a  few  ears  of  corn  in  the  neighboring  fields ;  then, 
falling  suddenly  upon  the  Texan  camps,  he  took  possession  of 
them,  and  at  the  same  time  planted  his  battery  upon  a  height 
whence  he  could  sweep  all  the  interior  positions  of  the  enemy. 
This  attack  increased  the  disorder  which  Lyon  had  thrown  into 
the  ranks  of  the  Confederates  and  facilitated  the  success  of  his 
movement.  A  portion  of  the  supply-train  of  McCulloch  was 
already  on  fire,  its  guard  having  begun  to  destroy  it  lest  it  should 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Federals.  Si^el  was  still  advancino-, 
meeting  with  but  little  resistance,  and  had  reached  the  point 
where  the  cross-road  he  was  pursuing  connected  with  the  road 
which  follows  the  course  of  Wilson's  Creek.  But  his  soldiers, 
on  finding  themselves  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy's  camps,  quickly 
disbanded.  They  were  three  months'  volunteers,  whose  term  of 
service  had  expired  several  days  before,  and  who  had  been  induced 
by  the  solicitations  of  their  chiefs  to  remain  another  week  under 
their  banners,  but  they  had  lost  all  their  zeal,  and  only  fought 
en  amateurs,  sparing  themselves  in  order  to  be  able  to  return  at 
once  to  their  homes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Confederates  were 
gathering  their  forces  for  the  purpose  of  resisting  this  new  attack. 
One  of  their  batteries  had  already  turned  its  fire  upon  Sigel's 
troops  and  caused  considerable  disorder  in  their  ranks.  Then 
McCulloch  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  a  Louisiana  regiment 
and  marched  against  them.  It  appears  that  this  regiment  hoisted 
the  Federal  colors,  and  that  the  Union  troops,  deceived  by  that 
stratagem,  did  not  fire  upon  them,  under  the  impression  that  it 


336  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

was  a  detachment  from  Lyon's  corps  coming  to  their  assistance. 
"When  the  mistake  was  discovered,  it  was  too  late ;  the  Confeder- 
ates, coming  up  to  the  charge,  routed  Sigel's  first  line ;  the  Texans, 
who  had  formed  again,  and  a  Missouri  regiment  of  cavalry  fol- 
lowed close  in  the  wake  of  McCulloch,  and  completely  dispersed 
the  Federals.  Sigel's  artillery  was  abandoned  by  the  troops 
whose  duty  it  was  to  support  it,  and  only  one  piece  could  be 
saved,  the  other  five,  with  their  caissons,  falling  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  Sigel's  disaster  was  irreparable;  his  cavalry  only 
bethought  them  to  regain  Springfield,  and  he  was  barely  able  to 
retain  three  hundred  men  about  him,  with  whom  he  rapidly  fell 
back  by  the  road  he  had  followed  in  the  morning.  His  losses, 
however,  had  not  been  heavy :  he  only  left  behind  him  fifteen 
killed  and  twenty  wounded,  with  two  hundred  and  thirty-one 
prisoners ;  but  the  remainder  of  his  column  was  dispersed,  each 
man  following  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  the  direction  of 
Springfield.  It  was  half-past  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Lyon  had  committed  the  error  of  dividing  his  forces  in  front 
of  an  enemy  superior  in  numbers,  and  of  making  Sigel  perform 
so  eccentric  a  movement  that  the  two  columns  could  not  afford 
each  other  mutual  support. 

While  Sigel  was  thus  crushed,  the  Confederates  returned  with 
renewed  vigor  to  attack  the  positions  conquered  by  Lyon.  It 
was  a  terrible  assault  for  the  small  Federal  army,  which  had  no 
longer  any  reserves.  The  artillery  was  in  the  greatest  danger. 
For  nearly  an  hour  the  two  hostile  lines  oscillated,  without  being 
able  to  gain  on  each  other ;  they  fired  upon  each  other  at  a  dis- 
tance of  forty  paces  among  the  brushwood.  Fortunately,  the 
men  who  served  the  Federal  artillery  were  not  disconcerted  for 
an  instant.  They  only  stopped  firing  grape  into  the  enemy's 
ranks  for  the  purpose  of  dispersing  a  body  of  cavalry  which 
threatened  the  right  flank  and  rear  of  the  army.  The  Federal 
line,  however,  was  at  last  compelled  to  fall  back,  and  seemed 
about  to  break.  The  Second  Kansas  came  up  to  its  support ;  but 
the  colonel  of  this  regiment,  while  he  was  leading  it  to  the  charge, 
fell,  seriously  wounded.  Lyon,  who  had  already  been  wounded 
twice,  seeing  the  soldiers  hesitate,  rushed,  sword  in  hand,  to 
place  himself  at  their  head,  but  he  was  in  turn  struck  dead.     This 


LEXINGTON.  337 

event  did  not  discourage  his  followers,  who  succeeded  in  main- 
taining their  positions,  and  the  Confederates  gave  a  moment's 
respite  to  their  adversaries. 

While  Major  Sturgis,  who  found  himself  in  command,  was 
consulting  with  the  other  officers  as  to  what  course  to  pursue,  a 
body  of  troops  was  seen  advancing  with  the  Federal  flag  flying 
in  the  centre.  Deceived  for  the  third  time  by  the  same  strata- 
gem, the  Unionists  mistook  the  new  comers  for  Sigel's  column 
and  hailed  them  with  triumphant  shouts ;  the  latter  replied  by 
opening  a  murderous  fire  upon  them,  while  their  artillery  poured 
canister  into  the  Federal  lines.  All  doubt  was  at  an  end ;  these 
w^re  the  forces  who  had  just  fought  Sigel,  and  those  guns  had 
been  captured  from  his  column,  for  the  enemy's  artillery  had  no 
grape  or  canister.  Attacked  by  JMcCulloch's  troops  with  all  the 
vigor  that  a  recent  success  could  inspire,  the  Federals  did  not, 
however,  lose  ground.  The  enemy  came  once  more  within  a  few 
yards  of  their  cannon's  moutlis,  but  failed  to  break  their  lines ; 
and  when  he  returned  furiously  to  the  charge,  it  was  only  to  be 
again  repulsed.  At  last,  when  he  was  on  the  point  of  capturing 
Totten's  battery  on  the  right,  three  regiments  from  the  left  wing, 
which  was  not  so  hard  pressed,  rushed  upon  the  assailants  and 
threw  them  into  disorder. 

It  was  near  eleven  o'clock ;  the  Confederates,  who  believed 
their  adversaries  to  be  numerically  much  stronger  than  they 
really  were,  had  exhausted  all  their  ammunition ;  and  being 
themselves  worn  out,  they  ceased  fighting  altogether,  confining 
their  operations  to  watching  the  enemy  from  a  distance  and  to 
securing  defensive  positions,  in  case  the  latter  should  renew  the 
condjat.  But  the  Union  army  was  far  from  being  able  to  resume 
the  oflensive.  Its  general  had  been  killed,  its  losses  were  con- 
eiderable,  and  the  regiments  had  become  the  more  disorgan- 
ized because  nearly  all  the  superior  officers  were  disabled ;  and  as 
no  tidings  of  Sigel  had  been  received,  all  the  indications  were 
that  he  had  been  defeated.  A  retreat,  therefore,  was  determined 
upon.  The  Confederates  did  not  dream  of  offering  any  op^DOsi- 
tion  ;  and  the  little  Federal  army,  falling  back  slowly  and  in  good 
order,  arrived  at  Springfield  in  the  evening,  where  it  was  informed 
of  Sigel's  disaster  and  found  the  sad  remnants  of  his  brigade. 
Vol.  I.— 22 


338  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

The  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek  was  the  most  obstinately  contested 
of  any  that  had  yet  been  fought  daring  that  war ;  it  had  cost  the 
Federals  two  hundred  and  twenty-three  killed,  seven  hundred 
and  twenty-one  wounded,  and  two  hundred  and  ninety-two  pris- 
oners. Deducting  Sigel's  troops,  which  had  fought  very  badly,  out 
of  the  four  thousand  men  that  Lyon  had  with  him,  the  losses 
were  nine  hundred  and  nine  in  killed  and  wounded — that  is  to 
say,  one-fourth  of  their  eifective  force — leaving  thirty-one  pris- 
oners only  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  avowed  losses  of 
the  Confederates  were  somewhat  heavier,  the  reports  of  tlieir 
officers  acknowledging  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  killed,  eight 
hundred  wounded,  and  thirty  prisoners ;  other  accounts  received 
at  a  later  period  figured  these  losses  at  one  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  twenty-eight  in  killed  and  wounded. 

Two  or  three  additional  regiments  would  perhaps  have  given 
the  victory  to  the  Federals;  but  if  they  did  not  achieve  it,  that 
bloody  conflict  was  not  without  its  advantages  to  them,  for  the 
Confederates,  paralyzed  by  the  destruction  of  a  portion  of  their 
wagons  and  the  want  of  ammunition,  and  astonished  at  such  a 
daring  attack,  did  not  venture  to  jDursue  them.  McCulloch  began 
affain  to  vacillate,  and  allowed  the  Federals  to  reach  Rolla  unmo- 
lested,  which  they  could  not  have  done  but  for  the  daring  action 
which  cost  the  life  of  their  leader.  While  the  Confederate  army 
was  slowly  following  in  their  wake,  the  news  of  the  battle,  of  the 
Federals'  retreat,  and  of  the  trophies  left  by  Sigel  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  spread  rapidly  throughout  the  country,  and  re- 
kindled the  fires  of  insurrection  everywhere. 

At  St.  Louis  a  new  revolt  appeared  so  imminent  that  Fremont 
was  obliged  to  proclaim  martial  law  in  the  city  [etat  de  siege).  In 
the  north-eastern  part  of  Missouri  the  Confederate  Harris  was 
roaming  about  with  a  brigade  of  nearly  three  thousand  men,  un- 
molested by  the  Federal  detachments  who  were  feebly  pursuing 
him.  In  the  south-east  the  Confederates  were  assembling  con- 
eiderable  forces.  Hardee  and  Pillow,  each  with  a  small  division, 
had  been  sent  by  Polk  to  operate  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. Taking  New  Madrid  as  the  base  of  their  operations,  they 
could  have  joined  hands  with  J.  Thompson  in  attacking  either 
Cape  Girardeau  or  Pilot  Knob,  or  even  Rolla.     The  small  army 


LEXINGTON.  339 

of  Sturgis  h?,d  arrived  in  that  city  on  the  19th,  and  had  halted 
there ;  since  then  his  ranks  had  been  thinned  daily  by  the  de- 
parture of  all  the  men  whose  term  of  service  had  expired,  and 
could  not  have  resisted  a  vigorous  attack.  But  the  various  Con- 
federate generals,  jealous  of  each  other,  could  not  come  to  an 
agreement  in  order  to  seize  the  opportunity  which  presented  it- 
self. All  their  movements  only  ended  in  a  mere  skirmish,  which 
took  place  on  the  19th  near  Charleston,  where  a  few  of  J.  Thomp- 
son's troops  were  surprised  and  put  to  flight  by  a  detachment  of 
Federal  cavalry  sent  from  Cape  Girardeau.  ISIcCulloch,  on  his 
part,  did  not  dare  to  advance  beyond  Sj)ringfield ;  and  after  re- 
maining in  that  place  for  some  time,  he  even  withdrew  toward 
the  south-west,  restoring  to  Price  at  last  entire  freedom  of  action, 
which  that  active  old  man  knew  so  well  how  to  turn  to  good 
account. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  agitation,  the  State  convention  of  Mis- 
souri, which  was  in  session  at  Jefferson  City,  the  political  capital 
of  the  State,  had  adjourned,  after  conferring  full  powers  upon 
the  provisional  governor,  Mr.  Gamble,  appointed  in  place  of 
Jackson,  who  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  But  as  this  function- 
ary belonged  to  the  Democratic  party,  he  could  not  agree  with 
Fremont ;  and  his  proclamations,  which  were  intended  to  reassure 
and  encourage  the  owners  of  slaves  who  had  remained  loyal,  soon 
involved  him  in  difficulties  with  the  military  commander  of  the 
department.  In  fact,  Fremont,  seeing  the  insurrection  spreading 
more  and  more  every  day,  and  not  knowing  how  to  suppress  it, 
resorted  to  measures  of  intimidation ;  he  assumed  dictatorial 
power  which  had  never  been  conferred  upon  him,  and  on  the 
80th  of  August  he  issued  a  proclamation  which  threw  the  whole 
West  into  a  state  of  excitement.  He  declared  all  slaves  belong- 
ing to  parties  in  arms  against  the  Federal  government  to  be  free, 
and  threatened  to  have  all  pei'sons  upon  M-hom  a  weapon  of  any 
kind  should  be  found,  within  the  imaginary  circle  which  he  indi- 
cated as  occupied  by  his  troops,  to  be  shot  on  the  spot.  As  to  the 
first  point,  it  was  in  direct  violation  of  existing  laws,  inasmuch  as 
the  act  of  Congress  of  August  16th  declared  those  slaves  only  to  be 
free  who  were  employed  in  military  works  against  the  national  gov- 
ernment.    By  the  second  part  of  the  order  he  subjected  the  life  of 


340  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

every  citizen  to  the  caprices  of  a  military  authority,  and  exposed 
the  Union  men  to  cruel  reprisals  on  the  part  of  the  Confederates. 
Mr,  Lincoln,  who  could  be  firm  when  it  was  necessary  to  enforce 
respect  for  the  law,  of  which  he  was  the  principal  guardian,  pub- 
licly repudiated  this  arbitrary  act,  and  compelled  Fremont  to  re- 
voke it.  This  was  the  origin  of  a  quarrel,  which  became  more 
and  more  embittered,  between  the  authorities  at  Washington  and 
those  of  St.  Louis.  The  irregularities  of  the  administrative 
branches  of  the  service,  which  increased  from  day  to  day,  the 
contracts  awarded  by  favor  to  those  around  him,  the  abuse  of 
power  in  the  distribution  of  grades  among  his  personal  friends, 
constituted  just  causes  of  complaint  against  Fremont.  Others 
were  added  which  had  no  foundation :  for  instance,  he  was 
blamed  for  having  erected  fortifications  around  St.  Louis  at  such 
a  critical  moment,  at  the  very  time  when  immense  Avorks  of  the 
same  character  were  being  built  around  Washington.  The  prin- 
cipal fault  of  Fremont  was  in  scattering  his  troops  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  impair  their  usefulness,  and  in  exposing  them  to  be 
everywhere  attacked  by  an  enemy  who  was  active,  well  in- 
formed, superior  in  numbers,  and  whose  designs  the  Federal  gen- 
eral had  never  been  able  to  fathom.  Since  the  death  of  Lyon, 
Price  had  not  been  confronted  by  an  adversary  capable  of  coping 
with  him. 

While  McCulloch  was  making  his  way  back  into  Arkansas, 
Price  was  proceeding  in  a  north-westerly  direction,  recruiting 
volunteers  in  every  county  through  which  he  passed,  and  on  the 
7th  of  September  he  met  at  Drywood  Creek,  near  the  Kansas 
frontier,  the  troops  of  General  Lane,  who  had  some  time  since 
entered  Missouri,  where  his  soldiers  were  committing  all  sorts  of 
depredations.  Lane  was  driven  back  into  Kansas,  and  Price  oc- 
cupied Fort  Scott,  which  he  found  abandoned.  Sturgis,  on  his 
side,  had  quitted  Polla  with  his  brigade,  and  was  skirmishing  in 
the  north  of  Missouri,  where,  in  concert  with  Pope,  he  gave  chase 
to  the  subtle  bands  of  secessionists  devastating  that  country. 
There  were  many  aifairs  among  the  outposts  at  the  South,  but 
the  only  one  of  the  kind  which  deserves  notice  was  the  encounter 
at  Benuight's  Mills  on  the  30th  of  August,  where  a  party  of  Con- 
federates attempted  to  surprise  a  Federal  post,  and  were  repulsed, 


LEXINGTON.  341 

leaving  eighteen  prisoners  behind  them.  The  safety  of  the  large 
rivers,  which  were  to  aid  the  future  operations  of  the  army, 
obliged  Fremont  to  increase  the  number  of  posts  stationed  along 
their  courses.  A  portion  of  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi — 
not  very  extensive,  it  is  true,  but  along  which  there  were  various 
points  easily  defended  and  of  great  use  for  closing  the  navigation 
of  the  river — had  been  kept  hitherto  out  of  the  field  of  war  by  the 
neutrality  of  Kentucky.  On  the  4th  of  September  the  Confed- 
erates determined  to  violate  that  neutrality  by  occupying  Hick- 
man and  Columbus.  They,  moreover,  sent  reinforcements  to 
Buckner,  who  was  organizing  the  rebel  militia  of  the  State,  and 
preparing  to  occupy  all  the  most  important  positions.  Among 
these  positions  there  was  one  of  great  importance  to  the  Federals 
in  the  river-war  they  were  already  contemplating :  it  was  Padu- 
cah,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Tennessee  and  the  Ohio.  It  was,  in 
fact,  the  key  of  the  first  of  those  two  rivers  whose  deep  waters 
were  to  permit  the  Federal  flotillas  to  penetrate  into  the  very  heart 
of  the  Confederacy.  Buckner  was  trying  to  forestall  them.  His 
militia  were  only  within  a  few  kilometres  of  the  city,  which  was 
already  making  preparations  to  welcome  their  arrival,  when,  on 
the  6th  of  September,  there  were  landed  two  regiments,  which 
General  Grant  had  sent  by  water  from  Cairo,  and  which  fortified 
that  position  so  as  to  protect  it  from  any  sudden  attack. 

Meanwhile,  since  the  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek,  Fremont  had 
persuaded  himself  that  the  occupation  of  Springfield  ought  to  be 
the  paramount  object  of  all  his  efforts,  and  that  the  possession  of 
Missouri  depended  upon  it.  He  had  forwarded  considerable  re- 
inforcements to  the  troops  who  had  fallen  back  upon  Rolla. 
One  month  earlier  they  would  have  ensured  the  victory  to  Lyon ; 
but  when  Fremont  undertook  an  expedition  against  Springfield, 
he  did  not  find  a  single  enemy  there,  and  Price  was  trying  to 
reach  the  borders  of  the  Missouri  by  forced  marches.  His  atten- 
tion being  completely  engrossed  by  this  fatal  project,  he  tliought 
neither  of  reinforcing;  the  rarrisons  stationed  alonsr  the  course  of 
the  Missouri,  nor  of  organizing  an  active  corps  which  might  have 
been  transported  by  steamers  to  any  point  that  was  threatened,  nor 
of  withdrawing  in  time  the  garrisons  of  such  posts  as  were  too  weak 
to  defend  themselves.     Orders  from  Washington  still  further  in- 


342  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

creased  his  uncertainty.  He  had,  for  instance,  been  again  directed 
to  send  five  thousand  men  fully  equipped  for  the  defence  of  the 
capital,  which  had  already  a  garrison  of  seventy  thousand  men ; 
he  protested,  but  was  obliged  to  send  two  Illinois  regiments  to 
the  army  of  Kentucky.  He  had,  however,  fifty-five  thousand 
men  left,  out  of  which  he  could  easily  have  disposed  of  a  sufficient 
force  to  keep  Price  in  check.  The  garrisons  which  occupied  Cairo, 
Paducah,  and  the  two  points  adjacent  to  Bird's  Point,  in  Missouri, 
and  Fort  Holt,  in  Kentucky,  did  not  number  less  than  twenty 
thousand  men.* 

After  driving  Lane  back  into  Kansas,  Price  marched  against 
Lexington.  This  little  city,  situated  four  hundred  and  eighty 
kilometres  above  St.  Louis,  commanded  the  whole  upper  cours'e 
of  the  Missouri  and  secured  communication  with  Fort  Leaven- 
worth. It  had  already  been  the  object  of  a  sudden  attack  a  short 
time  before.  One  of  the  rebel  bands  Avhich  were  arming  eveiy- 
where  at  the  news  of  Price's  approach,  and  travelled  far  and  wide 
to  serve  him  in  the  capacity  of  scouts,  had  suddenly  burst  upon 
Lexington,  where  there  was  only  a  small  garrison,  and  did  not 
withdraw  until  they  had  committed  great  havoc.  The  Federals 
then  determined  to  send  fresh  troops  into  that  town,  and  Colonel 
Mulligan  was  detached  from  Jefferson  City  and  ordered  to  occupy 
it  with  his  Irish  brigade  and  some  other  troops.  He  arrived  on 
the  9th  of  September,  having  proceeded  as  far  as  Sedalia  by  rail, 
and  marched  thence  by  way  of  Warrensburg  to  the  post  to  which 

*  The  strength  and  disposition  of  Fremont's  army,  including  the  home-guards, 
were  as  follows : 

At  St.  Louis 6,899  men. 

Under  Pope 5,488  " 

At  Lexington 2,400  " 

At  Jefferson  City 9,677  " 

AtEoUa.., 4,700  " 

At  Benton 3,059  " 

At  Cape  Girardeau 650  " 

At  Bird's  Point  and  Norfolk 3,510  " 

At  Cairo 4,826  " 

At  Fort  Holt 3,595  « 

At  Paducah 7,791  " 

Under  Lane  2,200  " 

At  Monroe  and  near  Cairo 900  " 

Total 55,695  " 


LEXINGTON.  343 

he  had  been  assigned.  Including  one  regiment  left  at  Warrens- 
burg,  he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  two  thousand  seven  hundred 
men,  among  whom  was  one  regiment  of  cavalry,  with  a  portion 
of  the  home-guards — a  kind  of  militia  very  little  accustomed  to 
war.  These  forces  would  have  been  sufficient  to  repulse  mere 
bands  of  marauders  ;  but  being  sent  to  the  neighborhood  of  Price's 
army,  they  afforded  him  an  opportunity  for  a  success  without  being 
able  to  offer  him  any  serious  resistance.  Mulligan  found  no  re- 
sources nor  any  means  of  defence  at  Lexington.  His  soldiers 
had  only  forty  rounds  of  cartridge,  and  he  brought  but  six  small 
brass  cannon  and  two  howitzers  with  him,  with  no  ammunition 
whatever  for  the  latter,  while  the  town  was  unprotected  by  any 
fortifications.  He  at  once  set  himself  to  the  task  of  throwing  up 
a  f(!W  strong  works  upon  a  hill  which  commanded  Lexington,  and 
on  which  the  college  was  situated.  But  the  configuration  of  the 
ground  obliged  him  to  give  these  works  too  much  development, 
which  prevented  him  from  completing  them,  imposing  at  the 
same  time  an  increase  of  labor  upon  their  not  very  numerous 
d';fenders. 

In  the  mean  time.  Price  was  advancing  by  forced  marches,  and 
on  the  morning  of  the  11th  of  September  he  reached  Warrensburg 
with  his  cavalry ;  but  the  Federal  regiment  which  had  been  left 
there,  and  which  he  had  hoped  to  surprise,  had  quitted  the  place 
a  few  hours  before.  His  infantry  followed  it  with  all  possible 
speed,  leaving  baggage,  provisions,  and  stragglers  far  behind,  and 
subsisting  upon  whatever  they  could  obtain  from  the  inhabitants 
of  the  country.  On  the  12th  he  appeared  before  Lexington  with 
his  cavalry.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  13th  his  army  was  drawn 
up  in  the  vicinity  of  that  town,  and  he  at  once  invested  all  the 
])ositions  in  which  Mulligan  had  entrenched  himself.  A  lively 
fire  was  kept  up  on  both  sides.  The  Confederates  occupied  the  city ; 
but  being  worn  out  by  their  marches,  and  soon  finding  themselves 
short  of  ammunition,  they  did  not  press  the  Federals  very  close ; 
they  took  up  their  position  for  the  night  at  a  certain  distance,  but 
yet  in  sight  of  their  works. 

The  siege  of  Lexington  had  commenced.  Mulligan  still  re- 
mained in  communication  with  the  river,  where  he  had  a  steamer. 
He  could  have  used  this  vessel  to  evacuate  his  positions  and  cross 


344  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

to  the  other  bank,  where  he  would  have  been  in  safety,  but  he 
was  without  instructions,  and  he  deemed  it  his  duty  tc  lefend 
Lexington,  GeneralJ.  C.  Davis  being  at  Jefferson  City  with  ten 
thousand  men,  whence  he  could  easily  send  him  sufficient  rein- 
forcements by  water.  Price  neglected  nothing  that  could  con- 
tribute to  the  success  of  his  enterprise  and  at  the  same  time  divert 
the  attention  of  his  adversary.  He  sent  a  detachment  westward 
to  Blue  Mills  Landing,  near  the  Kansas  frontier,  with  orders  to 
cross  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Missouri  and  to  intercept  any  rein- 
forcements which  mio;ht  come  to  the  assistance  of  the  Federals 
from  that  side.  From  another  quarter  he  summoned  Green,  the 
principal  leader  of  the  bands  from  Northern  Missouri,  to  cross  the 
river  with  more  than  three  thousand  men,  who  were  immediately 
directed  against  Boone ville.  On  the  13tli  Green  made  a  vigorous 
attack  upon  the  small  garrison  of  that  town  ;  and  although  he  did 
not  succeed  in  capturing  it,  the  chief  object  of  his  demonstration 
was  accomplished,  for  it  deceived  the  Federals  and  made  them 
believe  that  Price's  intentions  were  to  attack  Booneville  and  Jef- 
ferson City.  During  this  time  the  Confederate  general  was 
quietly  waiting  in  front  of  Lexington  for  the  opportune  moment 
to  strike  a  decisive  blow.  His  position  and  his  purposes  were 
known  throughout  Missouri ;  Fremont  alone  continued  obsti- 
nately blind.  On  every  side  old  men  as  well  as  young,  mount- 
ing their  horses  and  throwing  their  guns  over  their  shoulders, 
rushed  to  the  rendezvous  at  Lexington  to  take  part  in  the  victory 
to  which  Price  invited  them.  He  thus  saw  his  army  swelled  to 
the  number  of  twenty-two  thousand  or  twenty-three  thousand  men 
in  a  few  days.  Mulligan  had  written  to  his  chief  stating  that  he 
should  defend  himself  to  the  last  extremity ;  he  had  the  right  to 
expect  succor ;  he  had  incessantly  asked  for  it,  and  was  expecting 
it  from  day  to  day.  Not  a  man  was  sent  to  him,  nor  any  in- 
structions, although  he  remained  in  his  positions  until  the  17th 
without  being  molested  by  the  enemy,  and  although  his  danger- 
ous situation  was  the  theme  of  common  conversation  in  St.  Louis 
and  throughout  the  Union.  After  many  days  of  hesitancy,  Fre- 
mont became  at  last  convinced  that  something  must  be  done  fco 
extricate  Mulligan,  but  the  measures  adopted  by  him  could  not 
prevent  the  disaster,  which  he  still  persisted  in  not  foreseeing. 


LEXINGTON.  345 

He  should  have  embarked  the  best  part  of  the  garrison  of  Jeffei'- 
son  City  aud  ordered  it  to  occupy  some  favorable  point  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Missouri  about  a  day's  march  from  Lexington ; 
and  in  like  manner  he  should  have  brought  to  that  point  troops 
from  St.  Louis,  which  could  have  been  replaced  by  detaching  two 
regiments  from  Cairo ;  and  finally,  he  should  have  summoned  both 
Pope  and  Sturgis  to  his  assistance.  At  the  head  of  these  forces, 
thus  united,  he  could  have  marched  against  Price,  always  resting 
upon  the  river.  He  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  simj^ly  ordered 
J.  C.  Davis  on  tlie  14th  to  send  two  regiments  by  rail  to  Lexington, 
which  he  again  posted  immediately  at  Jefferson  City.  Sturgis, 
detached  from  Pope's  division  and  deprived  of  his  cavalry,  was 
ordered  to  proceed  by  rail  from  Mexico,  where  he  then  was,  to 
Utica,  whence  he  was  to  gain  the  bank  of  the  Missouri  by  land  in 
front  of  Lexington.  He  waited  until  the  18th  to  order  J.  C.  Davis 
to  go  to  Mulligan's  assistance  w^ith  the  greatest  portion  of  his 
troops,  and  directed  him  to  follow  the  railway  to  Sedalia.  This 
road  having  been  cut  nearly  in  the  middle  by  the  Confederate 
partisans,  he  thereby  imposed  a  march  of  five  or  six  days  upon 
troops  whose  means  of  transportation  were  altogether  insufficient. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederates  had  gained  advantages  which 
were  to  secure  their  success. 

In  fiict,  the  number  of  Price's  soldiers  was  increasing  daily. 
The  detachment  he  had  sent  to  the  west  had  rallied  all  the  par- 
tisans who  occupied  the  borders  of  the  upper  Missouri  as  far  as 
St.  Joseph,  and  had  thus  collected  together  a  body  of  nearly  four 
thousand  men,  which  was  directed  upon  Lexington.  On  the  17th, 
while  approaching  the  Blue  Mills  Landing,  where  he  intended  to 
cross  the  river,  these  troops  were  attacked  by  one  of  Sturgis's  regi- 
ments detached  on  that  side ;  but  after  a  short  engagement  he 
drove  back  the  Federals,  inflicting  serious  losses  upon  them,  and 
continued  his  route  without  further  molestation. 

On  the  following  day,  the  18th,  Lexington  itself  became  the 
scene  of  a  conflict  which  was  to  decide  the  fate  of  the  garrison. 
Price  saw  himself  at  last  surrounded  by  a  numerous  army,  badly 
organized  for  a  regular  campaign,  it  is  true,  but  full  of  ardor  and 
capable  of  making  a  brave  fight  in  an  enclosed  field  such  as  it  oc- 
cupied.    He  had  received  all  his  ammunition,  and  liis  artillery 


346  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

was  well  supplied.  On  the  morning  of  the  18th  he  ordered  a 
general  attack.  All  the  hei«:hts  which  overlooked  the  Federal 
works  were  crowned  with  batteries.  Owing  to  his  numerical 
strength,  Price  Avas  enabled  to  invest  the  place  completely.  The 
division  of  Rains  took  position  eastward  of  the  town,  that  of  Par- 
sons on  the  south  and  south-west,  while  Slack's  division,  supported 
by  the  brigades  of  McBride  and  Harris,  penetrated  into  the  town 
and  established  itself  strongly  in  the  buildings  which  the  Federals 
had  abandoned  several  days  before.  The  battle  began  at  once  all 
along  the  line.  The  Confederate  artillery  did  great  damage  to  the 
besieged,  who  replied  but  feebly ;  but  being  posted  behind  the  en- 
trenchments which  they  had  raised  by  incessant  labor,  they  kept 
up  a  heavy  fire  of  musketry  against  Price's  soldiers.  Every  time 
that  the  latter  attempted  to  carry  any  of  the  works  they  were  re- 
pulsed with  loss.  The  Confederates,  however,  discovered  the 
weak  point  of  the  defence,  and  hastened  to  take  advantage  of  it. 
The  troops  who  had  penetrated  into  the  town  extended  their 
lines  to  the  edge  of  the  river,  thus  occupying  the  intervening 
space  between  it  and  the  Federal  entrenchments.  A  steamer 
laden  with  provisions  lay  moored  at  the  wharf;  it  was  the  only 
means  of  communication  with  the  outside  world  left  to  Mulligan. 
The  Confederates  took  possession  of  her.  A  heavy  fire  was  im- 
mediately opened  upon  them  from  a  few  houses  situated  in  a  com- 
manding position  between  the  fortifications  and  the  Missouri. 
Among  these  houses  there  was  a  hospital.  The  Federals  have 
asserted  since,  that  their  adversaries  began  to  riddle  it  with  balls ; 
the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  have  insisted  that  the  first  shots 
were  fired  from  that  building.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  Confed- 
erates made  an  assault  upon  it,  and  carried  it  after  a  brief  en- 
o-ao-ement.  The  Federals  did  not  acknowledge  themselves  beaten. 
Eighty  soldiers  returned  to  the  charge,  recaptured  the  hospital, 
and  drove  those  who  had  made  a  lodgment  back  toward  the  river. 
But  this  success  was  not  of  long  duration.  McBride  and  Harris, 
having  considerable  forces  at  their  disposal,  arrived  in  large  num- 
bers, sweeping  before  them  the  handful  of  men  who  had  for  a 
moment  disputed  the  possession  of  the  hospital,  and  established 
themselves  securely  in  that  position.  It  was  a  fatal  blow  to  the 
defenders,  for  it  cut  them  oif  from  the  river,  from  all  hopes  of 


LEXINGTON.  347 

lelief  and  every  chance  of  escape,  and,  what  was  still  worse,  from 
the  only  point  where  they  could  procure  water.  There  was,  in 
deed,  neither  spring  nor  cistern  on  the  hill  where  Mulligan  had 
taken  up  his  position.  Thus,  in  spite  of  the  check  experienced 
by  the  Confederates  wherever  they  had  attempted  to  carry  the  en- 
trenchments by  main  force,  the  night,  which  finally  put  an  end  to 
that  bloody  strife,  found  the  Federal  chiefs  full  of  the  gravest 
anxiety.  The  heat  was  intense ;  the  supply  of  water  could  only 
last  one  day  longer ;  a  large  number  of  horses  belonging  to  the 
regiment  of  cavalry  had  been  killed,  and  their  carcases  would 
infect  the  air;  provisions  were  beginning  to  give  out,  and  the 
ammunition  was  nearly  exhausted.  JMulligan  had  set  an  exam- 
ple of  the  most  heroic  courage.  AVherever  there  was  any  danger 
to  be  encountered  he  was  seen  on  the  spot,  and  his  zeal  alone 
sustained  his  men  in  that  emergency.  His  only  hope  was  in  the 
arrival  of  reinforcements,  so  often  asked  and  so  impatiently 
looked  for. 

This  wish  was  about  to  be  fulfilled ;  but  so  far  from  ameliorat- 
ing his  condition,  it  was  only  to  render  it  the  more  galling  by 
condemning  him  to  suffer  the  torments  of  Tantalus.  Sturgis  had 
indeed  arrived  with  his  troops  on  the  19th  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  Missouri,  as  Fremont  had  directed  him ;  but  being  without 
cavalry,  he  had  not  been  able  to  scout,  and  instead  of  the  trans- 
port-boats he  had  counted  upon,  he  found  the  shore  where  he 
should  have  landed  lined  with  the  enemy's  skirmishers.  Having 
no  means  of  crossing,  he  was  compelled  to  fall  back  and  give  up 
all  hope  of  revictualling  the  besieged.  At  the  same  time,  a 
steamer  with  a  battalion  of  troops  from  Jefferson  City  stopped 
on  the  way,  and  landed  that  reinforcement  out  of  reach  of  the 
besieged  town.  The  forces  of  J.  C.  Davis,  stretcliinj::  along  tlie  line 
of  the  Sedalia  Railway  and  around  ^Yarrensburg,  could  no  longer 
arrive  in  time  to  save  Mulligan.  The  latter  still  kept  up  the 
fight  during  the  whole  of  the  19th,  the  following  night,  and  the 
morning  of  the  20th.  The  numerical  superiority  of  the  Confed- 
erates enabled  them  to  relieve  each  other  frequently,  so  as  to  give 
no  rest  to  their  adversaries.  The  amateurs,  who,  without  wearing 
any  uniform  or  belonging  to  any  regiment,  (ame  there  with  their 
rifles  to  fire  upon  the  unfortunate  men  who  occupied  the  summit 


348  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  the  hill,  were  still  numerous  and  extremely  dextrous.  The 
fire  of  the  artillery  was  scarcely  ever  slackened.  The  situation  of 
the  Federals  was  becoming  intolerable ;  some  of  them  were  only 
armed  with  pistols ;  water  began  to  fail ;  the  heat  increased,  and 
their  strength  was  giving  way.  On  the  20th,  the  Confederates, 
having  resolved  to  make  an  end,  piled  up  large  packages  of  wet 
hemp,  which  they  pushed  in  front  of  them  against  the  entrench- 
ments, like  gabions  at  the  head  of  a  sap,  to  protect  themselves 
against  the  balls  of  the  enemy.  In  this  manner  they  quickly 
approached  the  works,  behind  which  stood  men  too  much  ex- 
hausted to  offer  any  serious  resistance.  The  home-guards  took  to 
flight  and  hoisted  the  white  flag,  without  waiting  for  orders  from 
Mulligan.  The  latter,  seeing  that  it  was  useless  to  struggle  any 
longer,  determined  at  last  to  send  a  flag  of  truce  to  the  Con- 
federates, who  suspended  operations  in  order  to  settle  the  terms 
of  capitulation ;  and  he  laid  down  his  arms,  with  two  thousand 
seven  hundred  men.  It  was  a  great  triumph  for  Price.  He  did 
not  abuse  his  power,  but  paid  full  homage  to  the  valor  of  his  op- 
ponents. The  soldiers,  whom  he  had  no  means  of  subsisting, 
were  released  on  parole;  the  officers  remained  prisoners.  The 
losses  of  the  Federals  amounted  to  twenty-five  killed  and  seventy- 
five  wounded,  according  to  report.  Those  of  the  Confederates 
were  never  precisely  known,  in  consequence  of  the  number  of 
volunteers  who  were  not  enrolled  in  any  regiment.  Price  only 
acknowledged  twenty-five  killed  and  seventy-two  wounded. 

Ill  fortune  seemed  determined  to  pursue  the  Federal  arms. 
The  news  of  this  disaster  caused  a  great  sensation  in  the  North ; 
but  instead  of  discouraging  her  people,  it  only  served  to  strengthen 
the  manly  resolves  adopted  two  months  before.  In  Missouri,  on 
the  contrary,  it  caused  great  consternation  among  the  Unionists. 
It  called  forth  everywhere  severe  criticisms  against  Fremont. 
The  latter  concluded  at  last  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  do  some- 
thing. He  collected  his  forces  from  all  parts,  and  on  the  27th 
of  September  he  started  by  rail  from  St.  Louis,  with  an  army  of 
twenty  thousand  men,  composed  of  five  divisions  under  the 
respective  commands  of  Generals  Hunter,  Pope,  Sigel,  McKins- 
try,  and  Asboth,  and  accompanied  by  eighty-six  pieces  of  artil- 
lery.    On  the  following  day  he  arrived  at  Jefferson  City,  which 


LEXINGTON.  349 

lie  thought  was  threatened  by  Price,  and  the  garrison  oi'  which 
was  still  further  to  increase  the  number  of  his  forces.  If,  instead 
of  waiting  for  the  fall  of  Lexington,  he  had  assembled  this  army 
ten  days  sooner,  he  would  have  prevented  the  capitulation ;  and 
the  rapidity  of  his  movements  after  that  misfortune  shows  the 
error  he  committed  in  not  succoring  the  besieged  place  in  time. 

Price  was  not  so  imprudent  as  to  give  him  an  opportunity  to 
rectify  that  mistake.  His  object  had  been  accomplished ;  he 
had  rallied  together  all  the  bands  from  Northern  INIissouri  and 
achieved  a  brilliant  success.  But  he  did  not  expect  to  be  able  to 
maintain  himself  long  on  the  borders  of  the  river,  and  he  had 
just  learned  that  Hardee,  in  the  south-east,  instead  of  advancing, 
had  fallen  back  ujion  Madrid.  Not  being  able  to  obtain  pro- 
visions for  all  the  soldiers  gathered  around  him,  he  discharged  a 
portion  of  them,  directing  them  to  meet  him  in  the  south-western 
part  of  the  State,  which  was  his  usual  rallying-point.  In  thus 
keeping  close  to  the  Arkansas  frontier  he  secured  the  co-opera- 
tion of  McCulloch,  who  was  still  in  that  State.  It  was  necessary 
to  act  with  promptness,  for  the  Federals  threatened  to  press  him 
closely.  While  Fremont  was  gathering  his  forces  and  Sturgis 
was  preparing  to  cross  the  Missouri,  Lane  sent  some  mounted 
troops  to  harass  Price's  rear.  Consequently,  on  the  24th  of 
September,  a  Confederate  detachment  which  occupied  the  pass 
of  the  Osage  at  Osceola  was  surprised  and  put  to  flight  by  a 
party  of  four  hundred  Federal  mounted  men  from  Kansas,  and 
the  depot  which  they  were  guarding  was  given  up  to  plunder. 
But  Price  deceived  his  adversaries  by  sending  his  cavalry  to 
threaten  several  points  at  once,  and  by  means  of  forced  marches 
he  succeeded  in  escaping  them  with  the  troops  he  had  retained 
about  him.  He  started  on  the  27th,  the  very  day  on  which  Fre- 
mont began  his  march,  and  quickly  gained  the  borders  of  the 
Osage,  which  his  soldiers  crossed  in  boats  constructed  by  their 
own  hands.  Thence  he  proceeded  towards  Neosho,  where  Mc  Cul- 
locli  was  awaiting  him  with  five  thousand  men.  It  was  in  this 
town,  situated  on  the  frontier  of  the  Indian  Territory,  tliat  the 
legislature,  faithful  to  the  cause  of  the  South,  had  assembled  and 
proclaimed  the  secession  of  a  State  over  which  it  no  longer  ex- 
ercised any  authority. 


350  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Price  having  escaped,  Fremont  determined  to  pursue  him,  but 
this  was  not  an  easy  matter,  for  the  Federal  army,  which  had  been 
able  to  move  by  rail  or  steamboats,  did  not  possess  the  necessary 
means  of  transportation  for  a  long  march  across  the  State  of 
Missouri.  It  was  ill  supplied  with  provisions,  the  materiel  was 
entirely  wanting,  and  Fremont,  who  had  no  knowledge  of  this 
state  of  things,  was  constantly  ordering  his  generals  to  make 
movements  which  the  latter  were  not  in  a  condition  to  execute. 
Consequently,  his  army  continued  in  a  state  of  inactivity,  along 
the  line  of  railways  between  Sedalia  and  Tipton,  until  the  middle 
of  October,  and  the  disorder  of  administration  was  such  that 
provisions  could  hardly  be  obtained  even  in  a  locality  so  favor- 
able for  procuring  them.  In  the  mean  while,  the  army  had  in- 
creased to  a  total  of  sixty  thousand  men,*  nearly  forty  thousand 
of  whom  were  combatants. 

..  While  the  two  principal  armies  were  thus  at  a  distance  from 
each  other,  detached  corps  were  endeavoring  to  effect  reciprocal 
surprises,  and  their  encounters  caused  numerous  skirmishes,  which 
at  times  assumed  the  proportions  of  more  serious  engagements. 
Two  squadrons  of  Federal  cavalry,  which  had  been  sent  on  a 
reconnaissance  south-west  from  Rolla,  in  the  direction  of  Lebanon, 
fell  upon  a  party  of  mounted  men  of  the  enemy,  thirty  kilometres 
from  that  town,  and  charging  them  sabres  in  hand  put  them  to 
flight  after  killing  a  certain  number  and  taking  thirty  prisoners. 
On  the  day  following  they  surprised  a  whole  platoon  of  mounted 
Confederates  in  the  village  of  Linn  Creek.  A  column  of  infan- 
try which  was  to  re-establish  communication  between  Rolla  and 
Springfield,  as  soon  as  Fremont  should  reach  the  latter  point,  was 
advancing  behind  them. 

The  Confederates,  on  their  side,  were  trying  to  worry  their  op- 
ponents by  threatening  the  Pilot  Knob  line  of  railway.  J.  Thomp- 

*  The  active  portion  of  this  army  was  thus  divided,  according  to  their  re- 
spective localities,  on  the  14th  of  October : 

9,750  men. 


JLSl,  U 

2d 

IVISIU 

<( 

11,  iJLumei,  ill  iipiuii             .           . 
Pope,  at  Georgetown 

9,220 

3d 

« 

Sigel,  at  Sedalia 

7,980 

4th 

u 

Asboth,  at  Tipton 

6,451 

5th 

11 

McKinstry,  at  Syracuse  . 

5,388 

38,789 


LEXINGTON,  351 

son,  wlio  had  never  left  the  south-eastern  part  of  the  State,  gath- 
ered all  his  troops  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  the  three  regi- 
ments guarding  the  extremity  of  the  line,  under  Colonel  Carl  in ; 
on  the  15th  of  October  he  captured  a  post  of  fifty  men  stationed 
at  Big  River  bridge,  and  burned  the  bridge,  which  was  the  largest 
along  the  line.  The  garrison  of  Pilot  Knob  found  itself  thus 
isolated  from  St.  Louis.  Colonel  Carlin  immediately  sent  a  regi- 
ment after  him,  which  attacked  him  while  he  was  retreating  south- 
eastward, and  vigorously  harassed  his  rear-guard.  But  the  Fed- 
erals soon  encountered  the  principal  corps  firmly  established  at 
Fredericktown,  and,  being  unable  to  dislodge,  it  withdrew  after  a 
brisk  discharge  of  musketry.  The  position  of  Carlin  was  be- 
coming perilous.  Fremont,  who  had  quitted  the  Sedalia  Railway 
to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  his  columns,  was  far  from  any 
telegraphic  station,  and  could  not  be  consulted.  Fortunately,  his 
assistant  adjutant-general.  Captain  INIcIveever,  had  remained  at 
St.  Louis  in  the  exercise  of  all  his  powers.  He  immediately 
adopted  effective  measures  for  keeping  Thompson  in  cheek.  Two 
regiments  of  infantry,  with  a  battery  of  artillery,  under  Major 
Schofield,  were  sent  to  the  relief  of  Carlin ;  notwithstanding  the 
destruction  of  the  bridge,  these  reinforcements  soon  joined  him, 
and  he  was  enabled  to  place  himself  at  their  head  and  attack 
Thompson  at  once.  In  the  mean  time,  Grant  was  increasing  the 
garrison  at  Cape  Girardeau,  and  Colonel  Plummer,  with  a  brigade 
of  fifteen  hundred  men,  was  sent  from  that  point  to  assist  Carlin 
in  cutting  off  Thompson's  retreat.  Two  separate  columns  thus 
marched  upon  Fredericktown ;  but  a  despatch  from  Plummer 
having  fallen  into  Thompson's  hands,  the  latter,  thus  apprised  of 
the  danger  he  was  incurring,  had  stolen  away  by  a  rapid  march ; 
and  when  the  Federals  met  in  that  city  on  the  morning  of  the 
21st,  they  found  no  enemy  there.  In  the  mean  while,  Thompson's 
brigade,  which  had  adopted  the  nickname  of  its  chief,  who  was 
called  the  Swamp  Fox,  far  from  wishing  to  avoid  a  fight,  had 
gone  to  take  position  at  a  short  distance  from  Fredericktown, 
where  it  awaited  the  Federals.  That  brigade  was  scarcely  two 
thousand  men  strong;  some  were  armed  with  fowling-pieces, 
others  with  muskets  of  very  poor  quality,  but  all  were  broken 
to  the  rough  trade  they  were  following,  inured  to  privations,  and 


352  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

resolved  to  figlit  the  superior  forces  opposed  to  them.  Immedi- 
ately upon  his  arrival,  Pluramer,  with  his  brigade  and  the  largest 
portion  of  Carlin's,  marched  against  them.  The  combat  begins 
at  once.  Plummer  deploys  his  infantry,  and  Schofield  soon  ap- 
pears upon  the  field  with  part  of  his  artillery,  which  has  an  im- 
mense advantage  over  the  four  small  pieces  of  the  Confederates. 
The  latter,  crushed  by  the  fire,  fall  back  along  the  line.  The 
Federals  press  them  vigorously,  the  cavalry  makes  a  charge,  and 
their  retreat  is  soon  turned  into  a  complete  rout.  Eighty  prison- 
ers remain  in  the  hands  of  Plummer,  who  continues  the  pursuit 
until  evening.  Having  only  a  sufficient  quantity  of  provisions 
left  to  return  to  Cape  Girardeau,  he  retraces  his  steps  to  that  post, 
while  Carlin  returns  to  Pilot  Knob,  where  the  brigade  of  the 
Swamp  Fox  could  never  again  come  to  molest  him. 

Fremont  had  at  last  succeeded  in  putting  his  columns  in  mo- 
tion; and  while  a  detachment  of  his  troops  once  more  took  pos- 
session of  Lexington,  setting  free  a  certain  number  of  Union 
prisoners  left  there  and  capturing  seventy  of  the  enemy's  men,  the 
Federal  forces  pursued  their  toilsome  march  towards  the  Osage. 
On  the  16th  of  October  Fremont  reached  that  river  in  the  vicinity 
of  Warsaw,  but  its  swollen  waters  rendered  the  ford  impracticable 
and  made  it  necessary  to  construct  hastily  a  trestle-bridge.  This 
work  occupied  five  days,  and  on  the  21st  the  whole  army  crossed 
the  Osage.  The  transport  train  had  by  this  time  been  organized, 
and  it  followed  tlie  Bolivar  road  on  its  way  to  Springfield.  On 
the  24th  Fremont  reached  the  borders  of  Pomme  de  Terre  River, 
eighty  kilometres  from  that  city ;  and  he  sent  Major  Zagonyi,  an 
old  Hungarian  officer,  at  the  head  of  two  squadrons  called  body- 
guards, with  one  hundred  and  fifty  skirmishers,  to  make  a  recon- 
naissance. On  the  afternoon  of  the  25th  Zagonyi  came  in  sight 
of  Springfield.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  only  met  a  few  isolated 
partisans,  and  expected  to  find  that  city  garrisoned  by  a  few  hun- 
dred men,  whom  he  hoped  to  surprise,  when  he  learned  that  it  was 
occupied  by  nearly  two  thousand  of  the  Confederates.  Although 
his  force  only  consists  of  the  two  squadrons  of  body-guards, 
numbering  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  the  other  troops 
having  abandoned  him,  this  brave  officer  prepares  to  attack  the 
enemy's  posts  outside  of  the  city,  which  have  already  noticed  his 


LEXINGTON.  353 

ap])roach.  He  orders  his  little  troop  to  draw  their  sabres,  and 
then  rushes  into  a  narrow  road  which  it  is  necessary  to  traverse 
in  order  to  reach  the  enemy.  He  is  received  by  a  well-sustained 
fire ;  a  large  number  of  his  followers  are  left  on  the  spot ;  a  log 
fence  is  demolished  under  the  fire,  and  the  Federals  are  at  last 
able  to  deploy.  Some  charge  the  infantry,  who,  astonished  at 
such  an  attack,  take  refuge  in  disorder  in  an  adjoining  wood. 
The  remainder,  supported  by  about  fifty  skirmishers  who  have 
now  rejoined  their  chief,  attack  the  enemy's  cavalry,  which  was 
preparing,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  country,  to  fight  with 
the  rifle.  They  are  not  allowed  time  to  execute  their  intentions, 
and  the  onset  of  the  little  Federal  band  disperses  them  in  an  in- 
stant. Zagonyi  pursues  them  into  the  town,  which  the  Confed- 
erates abandon  in  haste  ;  he  halts  to  free  a  certain  number  of 
Union  soldiers  whom  he  found  there ;  but  fearing  lest  he  might  be 
surrounded  as  soon  as  the  enemy  has  discovered  his  weakness,  he 
retires  during  the  night,  carrying  twenty-seven  prisoners  with 
him,  and  leaving  about  fifty  wounded  and  a  few  stragglers  behind. 
The  losses  of  the  Confederates  amounted  to  more  than  one  liun- 
dred  men  killed.  The  affair  of  Springfield  was  the  more  brilliant 
for  the  Federal  arms  because  it  was  the  first  time  during  the  war 
that  a  charge  aufond,  with  drawn  sabres,  had  been  made. 

Two  days  after,  the  heads  of  columns  of  the  Federal  army  ar- 
rived at  Springfield,  and  three  divisions  of  that  army  were  soon 
united  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  town.  This  time  Fremont  had 
succeeded  in  putting  his  troops  in  motion  and  in  surmounting  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  transportation  which  had  hitl>erto  caused 
all  his  operations  to  miscarry.  He  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  to 
invade  Arkansas,  and  to  descend  with  his  army  as  far  as  New 
Orleans ;  so  little  value  was  then  placed  upon  the  capacity  of  the 
Confederacy  for  resistance.  But  a  single  march  to  the  southern 
frontier  of  the  State  of  Missouri  was  a  laborious  enterprise  for 
that  army,  whose  provisions  were  nearly  exhausted  and  whose 
administrative  service  was  yet  so  very  defective.  Its  greatest 
difficulty  was  to  overtake  an  enemy  who  knew  how  to  disperse, 
and  who,  certain  of  finding  means  of  subsistence  in  the  midst  of  a 
sympathizing  population,  could  always  elude  him.  Moreover, 
Price  and  McCulloch  had  not  considered  tbemselve&^  safe  at 
Vol.  1,-23 


354  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Neosho.  They  had  at  first  retired  to  Pineville,  only  a  few  miles 
from  Arkansas ;  but  the  Missourians  having  refused  to  leave  their 
own  State,  Price  had  brought  them  back  to  Cassville,  from  which 
place  he  watched  the  movements  of  the  Federals  at  a  distanje. 
Deceived  by  exaggerated  rumors,  Fremont  had  thought  himself 
menaced  by  this  force,  and  had  sent  in  great  haste  for  Pope's 
division,  which  had  been  kept  back  by  the  difficulties  of  the 
route,  as  well  as  that  of  Hunter.  At  the  same  time,  he  had  or- 
dered Grant  to  make  some  strong  demonstrations  in  front  of 
Cairo,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Ohio,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing 
the  Confederate  general  Polk  from  sending  reinforcements  to 
Price  from  Columbus  across  the  Mississippi. 

Pope  having  at  last  arrived,  Fremont  resolved,  on  the  3d  of 
November,  to  march  upon  Wilson's  Creek,  and  give  battle  to 
Price,  whom  he  had  expected  to  find  on  the  very  ground  where 
Lyon  had  perished  three  months  before.  This  was  a  serious  mis- 
take, for  the  Missouri  general  was  then  quietly  established  at 
Cassville.  In  the  midst  of  these  preparations  he  received  intelli- 
gence that  the  President  had  recalled  him  and  appointed  General 
Hunter  in  his  place.  Being  too  imaginative  to  make  a  good  ad- 
ministrative officer,  he  had  allowed  malpractices  to  be  committed 
by  those  around  him,  which  justified  this  severe  measure.  Foresee- 
ing the  chance  of  his  displacement,  threats  had  been  uttered  against 
the  government  by  those  about  his  person,  which  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  a  free  and  faithful  people  could  not  tolerate.  On  the 
other  hand,  nearly  all  his  lieutenants  were  in  open  hostility 
against  him.  In  short,  he  had  on  many  occasions  usurped  politi- 
cal powers.  The  disavowal  of  his  proclamation  by  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  been  no  lesson  to  him,  and  he  had  again  overstepped  his  pre- 
rogatives by  a  strange  convention  negotiated  with  Price.  He  had 
agreed  with  the  general  against  whom  he  was  waging  war  to  sign 
a  proclamation  binding  both  contracting  parties  to  prohibit  the 
formation  of  partisan  bands,  and  promising  to  all  those  who 
might  be  willing  to  return  to  their  homes  that  they  should  not  be 
disturbed  for  any  part  they  had  taken  in  the  war.  Fremont  thus 
fell  into  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  error  he  had  committed  in 
his  proclamation  of  August  30th,  which  had  called  forth  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's condemnation.     This  arrangement  was  altogether  to  the 


LEXINGTON.  355 

advantage  of  Price,  who,  being  on  the  point  of  quitting  Missouri, 
thus  secured  to  his  soldiers  the  means  of  quietly  returning  to  their 
homes  to  wait  for  a  better  opportunity.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
Hunter  promptly  repudiated  that  instrument. 

Fremont  was  popular  among  his  soldiers.  The  conqueror  of 
California,  by  his  good  qualities,  as  well  as  his  defects,  pleased 
those  rugged  and  adventurous  men  of  the  "West,  and  was  a  fair 
representative  of  their  ardent  views  in  all  political  matters.  Con- 
sequently, the  news  of  his  recall  created  much  excitement  among 
the  encampments  which  surrounded  Springfield.  But  no  one 
ventured  to  call  into  question  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Presi- 
dent. Among  the  many  expressions  of  deep  regret,  not  a  disloyal 
word  was  uttered  either  by  the  chief  or  his  soldiers.  Those 
American  armies  were  the  offspring  of  a  people  too  law-abiding 
for  sentiments  of  that  description  to  find  vent. 

On  the  evening  of  the  3d,  Hunter  not  having  yet  rejoined  the 
army,  Fremont,  at  the  request  of  several  officers,  made  all  his 
arrangements  for  the  battle  which,  hie  persisted  in  thinking,  was  to 
be  fauffht  on  the  following  dav-  But  his  successor  having;  arrived 
during  the  night,  he  left  for  St.  Louis,  carrying  with  him  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  largest  portion  of  the  troops.  By  an  order  which  may 
seem  to  have  been  too  severe,  his  body-guards  were  disbanded ; 
that  ridiculous  appellation  proved  a  misfortune  to  them,  and  made 
people  forget  their  brilliant  charge  at  Springfield.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  the  4th  Hunter  sent  out  reconnoitring  parties,  who  failed 
to  meet  the  enemy,  and  on  the  day  following  he  went  himself  to 
visit  the  battle-field  of  Wilson's  Creek  in  person.  Price  had 
never  gone  beyond  Cassville.  Although  Fremont  had  enjoined 
his  soldiers  to  obey  his  successor  as  himself.  Hunter  did  not  fail 
to  perceive  that  there  was  much  feeling  among  the  troops,  and  less 
confidence ;  he  did  not  think,  moreover,  that  the  army  supplies 
were  sufficient  to  begin  a  new  campaign  against  an  enemy  who 
appeared  determined  not  to  be  overtaken.  Not  being  able  any 
longer  to  procure  means  of  subsistence  for  all  his  soldiers  at 
Springfield,  he  fell  back  upon  Rolla,  followed  at  a  distance  by 
Price,  who  halted  at  the  first  of  the  former  towns. 

In  the  mean  time,  Grant  prepared  to  execute  the  orders  of 
Fremont,  notwithstanding  the  recall  of  this  chief,  to  whom  it  is 


356  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

but  just  to  attribute  a  portion  of  the  responsibility  for  the  reverse 
which  was  the  consequence  of  his  last  instructions.  Fremont,  as 
we  have  stated,  desired  to  prevent  the  enemy  from  sending  rein- 
forcements from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  into  Missouri  by  way 
of  Columbus.  The  Confederates  had  surrounded  the  latter  place 
with  vast  fortifications,  in  order  to  render  themselves  absolute 
masters  of  that  locality,  and  to  close  the  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi against  the  Federals;  batteries  armed  with  a  powerful 
artillery  were  erected  at  every  point  which  commanded  the  course 
of  the  river,  and  the  defenders  of  that  place,  considering  it  im- 
pregnable, had  called  it  the  Gibraltar  of  the  West.  Supplies  and 
ammunition  of  every  kind  had  been  accumulated  there,  and  the 
troops  who  had  assembled  there  since  the  beginning  of  Novem- 
ber had  formed  at  last  a  veritable  army.  The  opposite  bank  was 
absolutely  commanded  by  the  batteries  of  Columbus.  In  order 
to  intercept  any  reinforcements  on  their  way  to  join  Price,  it 
required  a  large  number  of  troops  to  operate  upon  both  banks  of 
the  Mississippi.  On  the  Missouri  side  a  force  could  proceed  a 
long  distance  from  the  river,  and  attack  all  the  troops  which 
might  be  on  the  march  to  effect  a  junction  with  Price ;  on  the 
Kentucky  side  it  was  sufficient  to  make  a  serious  demonstration 
against  Columbus,  to  oblige  the  enemy  to  hold  all  his  forces  there. 
On  the  2d  of  November,  Grant  was  ordered  by  Fremont  to  send 
a  few  troops  in  pursuit,  of  a  detachment  of  three  thousand  men, 
who,  it  was  reported,  were  on  their  way  to  Cassville  and  had 
reached  the  St.  Francis  River,  in  Missouri.  Grant  despatched 
Colonel  Oglesby  with  four  regiments,  also  numbering  about  three 
thousand  men,  to  look  for  it  in  that  direction.  But  on  the  5th,  he 
received  new  instructions,  directing  him  to  make  a  demonstration 
against  Belmont,  a  landing-place  situated  opposite  Columbus,  in 
order  to  prevent  the  garrison  of  the  latter  place  from  crossing  the 
river  to  go  to  Price's  assistance. 

Grant  hastened  to  obey  these  instructions.  But  before  describ- 
ing the  battle  of  Belmont  we  must  say  a  few  words  concerning 
the  two  generals  who  were  about  to  be  brought  in  contact,  and 
the  condition  of  the  two  armies  placed  under  their  respective  com- 
mands. The  name  of  General  Grant,  who  had  been  in  command 
at  Cairo  and  the  neighboring  posts  since  the  1st  of  September, 


LEXINGTON.  357 

was  then  as  unknown  in  America  as  in  Europe.  Laborious, 
persevering,  and  reticent,  he  had  displayed  great  personal  bravery 
during  the  Mexican  war.  After  attaining  the  rank  of  captain 
of  infantry,  he  had  left  the  army,  and  when  the  war  broke  out 
was  engaged  in  the  leather  trade.  Without  personal  ambition, 
but  convinced  that  it  was  the  imperative  duty  of  those  who  had 
received  a  military  education  at  the  expense  of  the  State  to  rally 
around  the  national  flag,  he  entered  a  regiment  from  Illinois,  his 
native  State,  and  soon  became  a  colonel.  He  was  to  have  the 
good  fortune  of  not  attaining  the  highest  positions  too  soon,  but 
he  exercised  from  the  besinnino;  of  the  war  commands  almost 
independent.  He  was  thus  able  to  profit  by  the  experience  of 
those  who  were  at  first  his  superiors ;  and  when  he  attained  the 
highest  rank,  he  had  already  acquired  a  profound  knowledge  of 
the  war  which  he  was  to  be  called  upon  to  conduct. 

Almost  in  front  of  him,  at  Columbus,  were  the  headquarters  of 
the  ranking:  commander  of  all  the  Confederate  forces  in  the  AYest. 
The  person  who  exercised  these  high  functions  would  have  been 
more  at  home  at  the  head  of  some  feudal  bands  of  the  IMiddle 
Ages,  than  as  commander  of  an  American  army  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  This  was  the  Right  Reverend  Doctor  Leonidas  Polk, 
Protestant  Episcopal  bishop  of  Louisiana.  Educated  at  West 
Point,  Polk  had  left  the  army  after  serving  two  years,  and  had 
entered  the  Church.  But  when  the  South  took  up  arms,  he  re- 
membered his  military  education ;  and  after  having  refused  the 
rank  of  brigadier-general,  he  could  not  resist  the  offer  of  a  major- 
general's  epaulettes.  Nevertheless,  in  donning  the  uniform,  the 
warlike  prelate  took  care  to  declare  that  he  did  not  renounce 
either  his  holy  calling  or  his  episcopal  functions,  and  he  in- 
formed his  flock  that  he  should  return  to  his  diocese  as  soon  as  he 
had  performed  what  he  called  his  duties  as  a  citizen.  But  he  was 
destined  to  die  as  a  soldier,  and  not  as  a  bishop.  He  was  killed 
by  a  cannon-ball  on  one  of  the  battle-fields  of  Georgia  in  1864, 
at  the  very  moment  when  fortune  was  declaring  in  favor  of  his 
enemies. 

At  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  Grant  had  been  invested 
with  a  command  altogether  distinct  from  that  of  the  Missouri — ■ 
one  which  placed  the  rivers  that  unite  near  Cairo  under  his  special 


358  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

charge.  He  occupied  Cape  Girardeau,  Commerce,  and  Bird's 
Point,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi.  His  base  of  opera- 
tions was  at  Cairo,  in  Illinois.  After  the  neutrality  of  Kentucky 
had  been  violated  he  had  taken  possession  of  the  following  points 
in  that  State :  Fort  Holt,  opposite  Cairo,  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi ;  Paducah,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Ten- 
nessee and  the  Ohio ;  and  Smithland,  at  the  confluence  of  the 
last-named  river  and  the  Cumberland.  He  thus  commanded  the 
mouths  of  the  three  river  lines  which  penetrated  into  the  South. 
A  certain  number  of  wooden  gunboats,  old  merchant-vessels 
armed  in  haste,  and  some  large  steamers,  with  several  decks, 
turned  into  transports,  constituted  a  flotilla  which  connected  these 
different  posts  with  each  other.  The  Confederates,  on  their  side, 
had  closed  the  three  navigable  routes,  whicli  their  adversaries  had 
not  yet  any  serious  intention  of  disputing,  by  means  of  well-armed 
works,  of  which  Columbus  was  then  the  most  important. 

On  receiving  the  last  instructions  from  Fremont,  Grant  imme- 
diately sent  an  additional  regiment  to  Oglesby,  with  orders  to  fall 
back  upon  New  Madrid,  a  little  below  Belmont,  so  as  to  threaten 
that  position,  against  which  he  was  himself  preparing  to  operate 
directly.  The  attack  was  fixed  for  the  7th  of  November.  On  the 
6th,  Grant  embarked  upon  three  transport-ships,  with  five  regi- 
ments of  infantry,  one  of  cavalry,  and  a  section  of  artillery,  three 
thousand  one  hundred  and  fourteen  men  in  all,  forming  two  small 
brigades,  under  General  McClernand  and  Colonel  Dougherty. 
In  the  mean  while,  demonstrations  were  made  upon  both  sides  of 
the  river,  one  from  Bird's  Point  and  the  other  from  Fort  Holt, 
but  they  were  undertaken  by  such  small  parties,  obliged  to  stop 
at  a  distance  so  remote  from  the  enemy,  that  they  were  without 
results. 

Pursuing  his  course  on  the  Mississippi,  Grant  left  his  adver- 
saries in  a  state  of  uncertainty  as  to  which  side  of  the  river  he 
would  select  for  landing.  In  order  to  deceive  them  a  little  longer, 
ho  stopped,  the  evening  of  the  6th,  on  the  left  bank ;  and  on  the 
morning  of  the  7th,  his  transport-ships  were  moored  to  the  right 
bank  at  a  place  called  Hunter's  Landing,  situated  above  Colum- 
bus, eight  kilometres  by  water,  but  only  five  in  a  direct  line,  for 
between  these  two  jDoints  the  river  makes  an  elbow  to  eastward, 


'■■ 

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:--^ 

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/'^r^-^ 

^"X^/  <f^'^^'\  Scale:' 1000  in.=MiIe 


LEXINGTON.  ■     359 

which  makes  the  distance  greater.  The  woods  surrounding  Bel- 
mont were  so  situated  as  to  keep  the  point  which  Grant  had 
eelected  for  landing  out  of  sight  of  the  batteries  of  Columbus. 
Around  this  point  there  were  a  few  cultivated  fields;  then,  on 
nearing  Belmont,  there  is  found  a  marshy  forest,  interspersed  with 
pools  of  water.  This  forest  extends  to  the  borders  ol  the  river, 
leaving  only  a  small  clearing,  where  rise  the  three  houses  consti- 
tuting the  hamlet  of  Belmont.  The  Confederates  had  enlarged 
the  clearing;  and  surrounded  it  with  ahattis  and  breastworks. 
This  post  was  guarded  by  a  single  regiment  of  infantry  and  a 
battery  of  six  pieces ;  but  the  Confederate  scouts  having  given 
timely  signal  of  the  landing  of  the  Federals,  which  was  effected 
very  slowly,  Polk  immediately  sent  General  Pillow  from  Colum- 
bus with  three  regiments  to  reinforce  the  garrison  of  Belmont 
before  the  battle  could  begin.  He  had,  indeed,  a  number  of 
steamboats,  which  enabled  him  to  transport  his  troops  from  one 
side  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  other  with  great  rapidity. 

Once  landed,  the  small  forces  of  Grant  deploy  and  march  upon 
Belmont.  The  fire  of  the  skirmishers  becomes  more  animated 
as  the  troops  advance  through  the  forest;  and  the  Confederates 
having  come  out  of  their  entrenchments  for  the  purpose  of  meeting 
the  assailants,  the  combat  soon  becomes  general.  Most  of  the 
Federals  have  never  been  under  fire,  but  they  bear  themselves 
bravely,  owing  to  the  examjjle  set  to  them  by  their  chief.  Grant, 
McClernand,  who,  although  a  general,  is  making  his  first  essay  in 
war,  Colonels  Logan  and  Buford,  who  were  afterwards  to  achieve 
so  much  distinction,  are  all  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight.  The 
Confederates,  closely  pressed,  are  soon  driven  out  of  the  woods, 
but  they  gain  courage  behind  their  abattis  and  defend  themselves 
resolutely.  The  Federals,  on  their  side,  find  shelter  in  the  forest,' 
which  is  sufficiently  near  to  the  enemy's  positions  to  enable  them 
to  direct  a  well-sustained  fire  upon  him ;  then,  rushing  to  the  as- 
sault, they  carry  everything  before  them.  Buford  is  the  first  to 
enter  the  entrenchments  and  drive  out  the  Confederates,  who  fly 
in  great  disorder.  They  are  pursued  from  all  directions  through 
their  camp,  and  their  six  guns  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  assail- 
ants. I'he  latter,  elated  with  their  success,  think  the  battle  at  an 
end  ;  and  while  the  Confederates  are  squatting  close  to  the  river 


360  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

banks,  whence  they  can  regain  the  woods,  where  they  can  hide  and 
rally,  the  conquerors  begin  to  pillage  the  camp,  of  which  they 
have  taken  possession,  and  give  themselves  up  to  the  most  bois- 
terous demonstrations  of  joy.  The  bands  play  national  airs, 
hurrahs  for  the  Union  are  shouted,  and  at  last  the  officers  them- 
selves, as  little  experienced  as  their  men,  stop  to  make  them  pat- 
riotic speeches.  The  troops  have  become  completely  disbanded, 
while  Grant,  with  a  few  of  his  most  confidential  associates,  who 
have  noticed  the  preparations  of  the  enemy  for  resuming  the  offen- 
sive, is  v'ainly  endeavoring  to  restore  order  and  re-form  the  ranks. 
Two  powerful  auxiliaries  soon  come  to  their  aid ;  on  one  hand, 
Grant,  with  a  view  of  putting  an  end  to  the  pillage,  orders  the 
camp  to  be  fired,  and  the  flames  drive  back  towards  him  the  men 
who  had  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his  commands ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  cannoneers  of  Columbus,  seeing  that  Belmont  is  entirely  oc- 
cupied by  the  assailants,  direct  upon  them  the  fire  of  their  heavy 
guns,  which  had  remained  silent  as  long  as  friends  and  foes  were 
mingled  in  the  fight.  Those  heavy  projectiles,  although  not  suffi- 
cient in  numbers  to  inflict  serious  losses  upon  the  Federals,  con- 
vince them  that  their  occupation  of  Belmont  is  an  impossible 
thing,  and  that  it  behooves  them  to  hasten  back  to  their  boats. 
But  much  precious  time  has  been  lost ;  and  while  they  are  rally- 
ing and  preparing  to  retrace  their  steps  towards  Hunter's  Landing 
with  the  trophies  they  have  taken,  they  perceive  that  the  enemy 
has  returned  in  force  and  is  manoeuvring  to  cut  them  off. 

Pillow's  soldiers,  after  their  crushing  defeat,  seeing  that  they 
were  no  longer  pursued,  had  gathered  in  the  woods  adjoining  the 
river  above  Belmont.  Polk,  on  his  part,  was  fully  determined 
not  to  allow  Grant  to  enjoy  his  success  in  peace,  and  sent,  at  two 
■  different  times,  six  regiments,  numbering  about  four  thousand 
men,  under  General  Cheatham,  to  attack  him.  These  troops  were 
landed  above  Belmont,  out  of  sight  of  the  Federal  gunboats,  which 
the  Columbus  batteries  held  in  check,  and  just  as  the  Federals 
were  beginning  their  march  they  had  already  deployed,  so  as  to 
intercept  their  retreat  towards  Hunter's  Landing.  It  was  a  severe 
trial  for  Grant's  young  soldiers  to  see  their  passage  barred  by  the 
enemy ;  but  again  the  example  of  their  leaders  urged  them  on. 
The  Confederate  line  which  sought  to  interrupt  their  return  wa3 


LEXINGTON.  361 

yet  very  weak  and  badly  supported.  It  was  at  once  broken,  and  the 
Federals  opened  for  themselves  a  passage,  not,  however,  without 
leaving  many  of  their  comrades  on  the  ground.  But  the  impetus 
which  had  enabled  them  to  break  dow^n  this  barrier  increased, 
w^hereas  it  should  have  been  checked,  and  the  retreating  troops 
have  fallen  back  slowly,  in  order  to  prevent  confusion  and  keep 
the  adversary  in  check.  Four  of  the  pieces  of  cannon  captured 
from  the  Confederates  are  soon  abandoned.  The  articles  picked 
up  in  the  camp  at  Belmont,  and  then  the  personal  effects  of  the 
soldiers,  their  knapsacks  and  canteens,  strew  the  road.  It  is  in 
vain  that  the  Federal  gunners,  with  the  two  remaining  guns,  try 
to  halt  for  the  purpose  of  firing  upon  the  enemy,  who  presses 
them  closer  and  closer ;  they  can  find  nobody  to  support  them. 
In  the  mean  time,  Polk  arrives  in  person  on  the  field  of  battle 
with  two  fresh  regiments,  which  increase  the  forces  engaged  on 
his  side  to  at  least  six  or  seven  thousand  men.  While  a  portion 
of  his  soldiers  are  harassing  the  rear  of  the  Federals,  he  attacks 
the  column  which  is  hastening  towards  Hunter's  Landing  in 
flank.  Fortunately  for  it,  this  movement  is  executed  too  late;  and 
the  Federals  are  able  to  form  in  an  open  field,  near  which  they 
had  landed  in  the  morning.  The  embarkation  is  effected  in  the 
greatest  hurry  and  confusion.  Several  officers  of  superior  rank 
have  been  killed  or  wounded  during  the  retreat ;  most  of  the  regi- 
ments are  disintegrated,  and  a  disorderly  mass  crowds  the  decks 
of  the  transport-ships.  They  hoist  on  board,  with  great  difficulty, 
the  two  pieces  of  cannon  captured  from  the  enemy,  together  with 
two  others  which  had  accompanied  the  expedition,  but  are  obliged 
to  abandon  the  caissons  belonging  to  the  latter.  The  battalion 
left  there  in  the  morning,  to  protect  the  approaches  to  the  landing, 
had  abandoned  its  post  without  orders  to  return  on  board  the 
boat,  and  many  detachments  which  had  been  sent  to  pick  up  the 
wounded  were  captured  by  the  enemy.  Grant  himself,  who  was 
among  the  last  to  remain  on  shore,  came  very  near  being  left  be- 
hind ;  the  last  steamer  had  already  unmoored  under  the  fire  of 
the  Confederates,  who  were  rapidly  approaching,  when  he  ap- 
peared at  the  water's  edge.  A  simple  plank  was  thrown  to  him 
in  haste,  over  which  he  passed  on  horseback,  with  a  few  officers 
who  accompanied  him.     Colonel  Dougherty,  while  endeavoring  to 


3G2  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

rally  the  Seventh  Iowa,  whose  officers  were  nearly  all  disabled, 
was  seriously  wounded  and  taken  prisoner.  As  the  steamers  were 
getting  under  way  they  were  riddled  with  balls  by  the  enemy, 
who  was  only  fifty  metres  from  the  bank,  but,  strange  to  say, 
only  one  man  was  killed ;  and  soon  the  two  vessels,  firing  grape 
into  the  Confederate  ranks,  compelled  them  to  seek  shelter  in  the 
woods.  "While  slowly  ascending  the  river  the  steamers  picked  up 
many  soldiers,  either  single  or  marching  in  squads,  who  had  gone 
astray  and  had  reached  the  river  bank.  Finally,  very  late  in  the 
evening,  the  flotilla  came  to  anchor  in  front  of  Cairo.  Grant  im- 
mediately sent  an  order  to  Oglesby  to  leave  New  Madrid  and  re- 
turn to  the  point  whence  he  had  started — an  order  which  that 
officer  promptly  and  successfully  executed.  The  two  demonstra- 
tions which  had  been  ordered  for  the  day  previous  had  been  made, 
but  without  discovering  any  enemy. 

The  battle  of  Belmont  cost  Grant,  it  is  said,  thirty-four  killed, 
two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  wounded,  and  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  prisoners.  The  loss  which  he  inflicted  upon  the  enemy 
was  much  greater :  he  captured  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men 
and  two  pieces  of  cannon ;  the  retreat,  however,  was  too  precipi- 
tate for  the  result  of  the  expedition  to  be  regarded  as  a  success. 
If,  as  the  public  believed,  Grant  had  intended  to  take  up  his 
position  at  Belmont,  the  aflPair  was  a  complete  failure.  The  fact 
of  Oglesby's  column  being  sent  to  New  Madrid,  to  the  south 
of  Belmont,  would  seem  to  justify  that  assumption.  Such  an 
intention,  however,  should  not  be  attributed  to  him,  as  it  would 
imply  that  he  was  ignorant  of  the  strength  of  Polk's  army 
and  of  the  configuration  6f  the  ground,  which  placed  Belmont 
at  the  mer(3y  of  the  guns  of  Columbus.  It  appears  in  reality 
that  Grant's  project  was  to  make  a  simple  demonstration,  without 
carrying  the  attack  to  a  conclusion,  but  he  was  afraid  of  dis- 
couraging his  troops  by  stopping  them  before  they  had  been 
seriously  engaged.  At  all  events,  even  after  the  capture  of  the 
camp,  if,  instead  of  dispersing,  they  had  pursued  Pillow's  soldiers 
and  fallen  back  immediately  afterwards,  they  would  have  been 
satisfied  with  their  success,  and  he  could  have  led  them  back 
without  loss.  The  fight  at  Belmont  was  nothing  more  than  an 
isolated  incident  which  could  have  no  serious  consequences.     The 


LEXINGTON.  363 

North  was  much  troubled,  regarding  it  as  a  defeat,  while  in  the 
S  ^uth  it  was  glorified  as  a  victory ;  but  the  Federal  troops  de- 
rived from  it  reliance  upon  their  own  courage,  and  their  generals 
acquired  a  little  of  that  experience  which  they  needed.  They 
began  to  understand  that  it  was  not  by  disjointed  and  insignificant 
efforts  that  they  could  accomplish  a  task  of  such  magnitude  as 
that  of  conquering  the  whole  course  of  the  Mississippi. 

Important  changes  among  superior  officers  paved  the  way  for 
the  bcffinnino;  of  a  new  era  in  the  Avar.  On  the  1st  of  Novem- 
ber  McClellan  had  succeeded  Scott  in  the  supreme  command  of 
the  armies,  and  he  had  entrusted  the  department  of  the  West  to 
General  Halleck,  an  educated  and  methodical  officer,  whose  name 
will  henceforth  be  frequently  mentioned  in  these  pages. 

The  new  chief,  who  arrived  in  St.  Louis  on  the  16th  of  No- 
vember, set  to  work  at  once  to  collect  the  necessary  means  for 
undertaking  a  serious  campaign  by  water ;  in  order  to  do  this,  it 
required  more  troops  than  Grant  Avas  able  to  furnish,  numerous 
steamers  for  transportation,  and  gun-boats  able  to  cope  with  the 
heavy  artillery  of  the  Confederate  forts.  The  preparations  for 
this  campaign  continued  until  the  year  1862. 

In  the  mean  time,  Halleck  was  occupied  in  reorganizing  the 
army  of  the  Missouri,  which  Hunter  had  left  him  after  a  few 
days'  command,  exchanging  the  department  of  the  West  for  that 
of  Kansas.  He  introduced  into  it  a  severe  discipline,  and  finally 
succeeded  in  establishing  order  and  method  in  tlie  administrative 
service.  As  Ave  have  already  stated.  Hunter's  retreat  to  Rolla 
had  surrendered  a  great  portion  of  Missouri  to  Price.  The  lat- 
ter had  taken  advantage  of  the  liberty'thus  granted  him  to  return 
northward  toAvards  those  rich  river  regions  of  the  Missouri  where 
he  was  ahvays  sure  of  finding  recruits,  horses,  provisions,  and 
even  money,  and  had  taken  up  a  position  on  the  banks  of  the 
Osage.  There  he  Avas  in  constant  communication  Avith  all  the 
secessionists  of  that  section  of  the  State ;  he  increased  and  pro- 
visioned his  army  and  addressed  earnest  appeals  to  his  partisans. 
The  latter,  it  is  true,  did  not  flock  to  his  standard  so  rapidly  as 
he  desired,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  persecuted  those  Union- 
ists Avho  had  tl  e  misfortune  of  being  among  them  more  bitterly 
than  ever.     Bands  of  refugees,  stripped  of  everything,  in  a  fright- 


364  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ful  state  of  distress  and  suffering,  arrived  daily  in  St.  Louis, 
imploring  the  pity  of  the  Federals.  Halleck  took  energetic 
measures  to  put  an  end  to  these  annoyances.  After  having  again 
declared  martial  law  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  he  compelled  that 
portion  of  the  inhabitants  whom  he  suspected  of  being  in  secret 
communication  with  the  enemy  to  feed  the  refugees — a  measure 
which  the  odious  persecutions  of  which  the  latter  had  been  the  vic- 
tims alone  could  justify.  In  short,  contrary  to  the  system  adopted 
by  Fremont,  Halleck,  who  belonged  to  the  Democratic  party,  pro- 
hibited fugitive  negroes  from  approaching  his  encampments ;  this 
interdiction  gave  rise  to  discussions  of  which  we  shall  speak 
hereafter. 

He  could  not,  however,  allow  Price  to  remain  in  quiet  posses- 
sion of  the  country  he  had  invaded ;  and  towards  the  middle  of 
December  he  directed  Pope,  who  occupied  Sedalia,  at  the  extrem- 
ity of  the  railway,  to  advance  westward — not  to  attack  the  main 
body  of  the  Confederate  army  on  the  borders  of  the  Osage,  but 
to  intercept  parties  which  were  bringing  reinforcements  from  the 
banks  of  the  Missouri.  Those  parties  were,  in  fact,  becoming 
more  and  more  numerous,  and  the  Federals  of  Kansas  had 
already  had  a  slight  engagement  with  them  at  Little  Blue  on  the 
10th  of  November,  before  the  arrival  of  the  Missouri  general 
in  that  region.  Pope  performed  his  mission  successfully.  On 
the  15th  of  December  he  caused  his  cavalry  to  make  a  demon- 
stration in  the  direction  of  Warsaw  and  Osceola,  as  if  he  had 
intended- to  attack  Price.  The  day  following,  the  whole  of  his 
column,  amounting  to  about  four  thousand  men,  made  a  forced 
march,  and  taking  positioA  to  the  south  of  Warrensburg,  placed 
mounted  sentinels  along  the  road,  followed  by  supply-trains  and 
the  detachments  which  were  on  the  way  to  join  Price  from  the 
North.  One  of  these  detachments,  numbering  about  one  thou- 
sand men,  was  signalled  at  some  distance  to  the  westward;  a 
regiment  of  cavalry  and  a  battery  of  artillery  were  sent  against 
it,  and  after  having  pursued  it  for  two  days  compelled  it  to 
disperse.  In  the  mean  while,  Pope  received  information  that 
another  detachment,  of  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hundred  men,  had 
crossed  the  Missouri  and  was  directing  its  march  towards  AYar- 
rensburg.     He  immediately  made  his  dispositions  to  surround  it. 


•     LEXINGTON.  365 

He  posted  himself  with  one  brigade  to  the  southward  of  the 
point  where  the  Confederates  had  purposed  to  encamp.  Colonel 
Marshall  was  expected  to  approach  from  the  west,  and  Colonel 
J.  C.  Davis  with  the  cavalry  of  his  brigade  was  to  cut  off  their 
retreat  on  the  north-east.  Davis  was  the  first  to  eiicounler  the 
enemy,  on  the  19th  of  December,  separated  from  him  by  the 
Black  Water  River,  near  the  mouth  of  Clear  Creek.  A  narrow 
bridge  defended  by  Confederate  skirmishers  spans  the  Black 
Water  at  that  j3oint.  A  platoon  of  regular  cavalry,  commanded 
by  Lieutenant  Gordon,  dismounted  at  once  and  carried  the  bridge 
by  assault.  The  remainder  of  the  troop  followed  him,  and  after 
exchanging  a  few  shots  with  the  Confederates,  most  of  whom 
were  inexperienced  recruits  and  poorly  armed,  drove  them  back 
between  the  river  and  a  swamp  which  out  off  their  retreat. 
Being  now  aware  that  a  considerable  force  was  rapidly  approach- 
ing for  the  purpose  of  surrounding  them,  and  doubting  his  ability 
to  induce  his  men  to  make  a  vigorous  effort  to  escape,  Colonel 
Robinson,  who  commanded  the  Confederate  detachment,  was 
obliged  to  surrender.  Thirteen  hundred  prisoners  and  a  large 
supply-train  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Federals,  who  after  this 
success  returned  to  Sedalia.  Price,  deprived  of  the  resources  he 
had  come  in  quest  of  on  this  side,  fell  back  again  upon  Spring- 
field, where  his  army,  from  eight  to  ten  thousand  men  strong,  went 
into  winter  quarters.  At  the  same  period  the  marching  column 
of  General  Prentiss  also  restored  the  Federal  authority  through- 
out the  whole  of  Northern  Missouri,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year 
only  one-half  of  the  southern  section  of  that  State  remained  in 
the  hands  of  the  Confederates. 

The  rigors  of  winter  came  to  put  an  end  to  military  operations 
for  some  time.  When  these  were  resumed  in  1862,  they  were 
conducted  with  more  concert  of  action.  Those  we  have  just  nar- 
rated present  a  series  of  unimportant  events  which  seem  to  be  en- 
tirely disconnected,  and  which  the  reader  may  have  considered 
somewhat  too  long  and  quite  monotonous.  Their  recital  was, 
nevertheless,  indispensable  in  order  to  show  how  the  war  was 
carried  on  in  those  distant  regions — a  war  which,  from  many 
points  of  view,  calls  to  mind  those  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  which 
small  armies   ceaselessly  advance   or  retreat,  are   often  lost  to 


366  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

vieWj  to  meet  again  on  the  day  of  conflict,  and  frequently  dis- 
persed on  the  morrow  for  want  of  the  means  of  subsistence ;  a 
war  waged  not  only  by  volunteers,  but  by  real  amateurs,  who 
preserve  all  their  personal  independence;  a  war  in  which  the 
whole  population,  divided  by  hostile  passions,  takes  an  active 
part,  and  which  consequently  offers  a  larger  field  than  any  other 
for  violence,  pillage,  and  crime. 


CHAPTER  II. 

BALL'S  BLUFF. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  described  the  military  events 
whicli  took  place  along  the  course  of  the  Mississippi  and  in 
the  region  west  of  the  great  river  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
year  1861.  Winter^  by  interrupting  hostilities,  left  the  Federals 
in  possession  of  two-thirds  of  the  State  of  JNIissouri  and  their  ad- 
versaries firmly  established  on  the  Mississij^pi  at  Columbus  and 
Belmont. 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  bring  the  history  of  the  year  1861 
to  a  close,  with  the  exception  of  what  concerns  naval  operations, 
the  description  of  which  is  reserved  for  a  later  portion  of  the 
history.  Our  narrative  will  comprise  at  first  the  battles  fought 
in  Kentucky  and  in  West  Virginia — the  intermediate  battle-field 
between  the  armies  of  the  East  and  those  of  the  West — together 
with  the  various  incidents  which  relieved  the  monotony  of  camp- 
life  among  the  troops  of  both  parties  stationed  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Potomac. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  policy  pursued  by  the  State  of 
Kentucky  when  the  civil  war  broke  out  around  her.  That  sec- 
tion was  greatly  divided,  but  the  majority  of  its  inhabitants  knew 
that  they  would  be  the  first  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  struggle, 
and  after  having  vainly  endeavored  to  conciliate  both  parties, 
they  had  tried  to  maintain  an  attitude  of  neutrality  between  them 
to  avoid  that  misfortune.  But  among  the  population  inclined 
towards  peace  there  was  a  party  loyal  to  the  Union  and  ready  to 
fight  for  it,  and  another  not  less  devoted  to  the  interests  of  slavery. 
Governor  Magoffin,  who  belonged  to  the  latter,  was  making  strong 
efforts  to  drive  Kentucky  into  the  Confederacy  of  the  insurgent 
States.  The  legislature  was  opposed  to  his  course ;  and  the  August 
elections  for  Congressmen  having  given  a  large  majority  to  the 
Union  party,  Magoffin  was  obliged  to  dissemble  his  purposes  and 

367 


368  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

to  make  a  show  of  adhesion  to  the  programme  of  neutrality. 
After  refusing  to  respond  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  call  for  volunteers,  he  ad- 
vocated the  organization  of  regiments  recruited  exclusively  among 
secessionists,  and  commanded  by  the  most  zealous  men  among  them, 
who  were  ready  to  avail  themselves  of  the  firstopportunity  to  join 
the  Confederates.  The  Unionists  wore  at  last  aroused  on  seeing 
an  insurgent  army  thus  being  organized  in  their  very  midst,  under 
the  name  of  State  militia,  and  they  spontaneously  made  prepara- 
tions to  take  up  arms  on  the  day  when  their  opponents  should 
throw  off  the  mask.  Kentucky,  being  far  richer,  better  culti- 
vated, and  with  a  larger  population  than  Missouri,  found  herself, 
like  the  latter  State,  divided  into  two  hostile  and  armed  factions. 
The  Union  camps  at  Louisville,  on  the  borders  of  the  Ohio,  and 
at  Dick  Robinson's,  in  East  Kentucky,  soon  collected  a  sufficiently 
large  number  of  volunteers  to  alarm  Governor  Magoffin  and  his 
accomplices.  Wishing  to  make  people  believe  in  his  impartial- 
ity, he  addressed  a  communication,  about  the  middle  of  August,  to 
the  authorities  at  Washington,  and  at  Richmond,  protesting  against 
any  schemes  which  might  jeopardize  the  neutrality  of  Kentucky. 
But  this  neutrality  was  already  nothing  more  than  an  idle  phrase. 
It  was  known  that  the  legislature,  which  was  to  meet  at  Frank- 
fort on  the  2d  of  September,  would  loyally  sustain  the  Federal 
cause  and  take  proper  steps  to  prevent  such  an  important  State 
from  falling  into  the  hands  of  her  enemies.  Consequently,  the 
latter  determined  to  act  before  the  meeting  of  the  legislature ;  and 
on  the  4th  of  September,  at  the  very  time  when  Mr.  Davis  was 
giving  assurances  that  he  should  respect  the  neutrality  of  Ken- 
tucky, General  Polk  took  possession  of  Columbus  by  surprise. 
The  prompt  action  of  Grant,  as  we  have  stated,  alone  prevented 
him  from  reaching  Paducah  in  time.  For  a  while  a  real  comedy 
was  enacted  between  the  governors  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee, 
the  former  protesting  against  the  invasion  of  his  State  and  the 
latter  declaring  that  he  was  not  responsible  for  it,  whereas  they 
had  both  prepared  and  favored  that  movement  of  the  Confeder- 
ate troojis.  But  the  signal  had  been  given.  Kentucky  was 
henceforth  given  up  to  all  the  horrors  of  a  double  invasion,  and 
she  was  the  more  exposed  to  be  so  treated  because,  having  from 
the  first  excluded  both  parties  from  her  soil,  she  could  not  expect 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  369 

protection  from  either.  New  battle-fields,  extending  from  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Alleghanies,  were  to  form  a  line  of  operation 
sonnectino;  the  armies  of  the  West  with  those  of  the  East.  Be- 
fore  proceeding  to  give  an  account  of  the  battles  which  marked 
the  first  encounters  between  the  belligerents  in  Kentucky,  we 
must  enter  into  a  few  details  regarding  that  country  and  the  posi- 
tions they  were  to  occupy. 

There  is  no  necessity  for  any  particular  mention  of  Western 
Kentucky — a  very  small  district,  watered  by  the  Cumberland, 
the  Tennessee,  and  the  Mississippi — where  the  military  operations 
were  subservient  to  those  of  which  the  last-mentioned  river  was 
the  theatre.  The  region  of  which  we  are  to  speak  is  divided  into 
three  sections.  To  the  westward  Central  Kentucky,  a  rich  coun- 
try, thickly  settled,  and  intersected  by  several  lines  of  railways, 
which  connect  with  the  left  bank  of  the  Ohio,  its  northern  bound- 
ary; Louisville  at  the  west,  Frankfort  and  Lexington  in  the 
centre,  and  Covington  at  the  north,  opposite  to  Cincinnati,  are  its 
principal  cities.  The  second  section  consists  of  Eastern  Ken- 
tucky, poor  in  water-courses,  without  railways,  and  lying  be- 
tween the  ridge  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  a  branch  of  the 
Alleghanies,  and  the  Ohio.  The  third,  still  more  to  the  east,  is 
only  a  continuation  of  that  region.  It  possesses  the  same  features 
and  presents  the  same  obstacles  to  the  operations  of  armies.  This 
is  West  Virginia,  divided  into  two  districts,  one  to  the  south  and 
the  other  to  the  north  of  the  Great  Kanawha.  McClellan's  first 
campaign  has  already  made  the  reader  acquainted  with  the  last- 
mentioned  district.  We  left  both  Federals  and  Confederates 
there,  reduced  in  numbers,  and  since  the  defeat  of  Garnett  at 
Laurel  Hill  engaged  in  trifling  skirmishes. 

In  Kentucky,  as  has  been  above  stated,  both  parties  are  pre- 
paring for  the  conflict.  The  State  militia,  formed  under  the 
auspices  of  the  governor  and  of  the  entire  personnel  of  his  admin- 
tration,  is  destined  to  be  soon  incorporated  with  the  Confederate 
army,  and  occupies  positions  which  will  acquire  a  special  import- 
ance during  the  war.  General  Buckner,  who  is  in  command,  has 
taken  position  at  the  railroad  junction  at  Bowling  Green,  the 
chief  centre  of  the  system  in  Southern  Kentucky,  from  which  he 
commands  all  the  western  districts  of  that  State.  The  Unionists, 
Vol.  I.— 24 


370  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

on  their  part,  under  the  name  of  home-guards,  have  formed,  as 
we  have  also  stated,  two  camps,  where  all  their  forces  are  concen- 
trated, one,  near  Louisville,  deriving  all  its  needed  equipments 
from  the  neighboring  State  of  Ohio;  the  other,  called  Camp 
"  Dick  Robinson,"  situated  in  Garrard  county,  south  of  Frank- 
fort and  Lexington.  This  central  location  serves  as  a  rallying- 
point  for  the  partisans  of  the  Federal  cause,  more  numerous  in  the 
east  than  in  the  west,  and  at  the  same  time  commands  the  road 
from  Cumberland  Gap  and  East  Tennessee. 

This  last  district  is  formed  of  several  valleys  lying  between 
parallel  ridges,  like  the  mountainous  region  of  West  Virginia,  of 
which  it  is  the  continuation  to  the  southward.  Like  the  latter 
section  of  country,  it  was  settled  by  emigrants  from  the  North, 
who,  leaving  Pennsylvania,  have  invariably  followed  the  long  and 
elevated  valleys  through  which  flow  first  the  Potomac  and  then 
the  Tennessee.  These  settlers,  although  surrounded  east  and  west 
by  populations  whose  prosperity  depended  entirely  upon  slave 
labor,  and  notwithstanding  the  sanction  and  the  encouragement 
which  the  institution  received  from  the  laws,  had  always  been 
opposed  in  practice  to  slavery.  Consequently,  they  had  remained 
devotedly  attached  to  the  Union.  Their  loyalty  was  a  source  of 
great  embarrassment  to  the  Confederates,  for  it  belied  the  pre- 
tended unanimity  of  the  South.  As  soon  as  hostilities  had  com- 
menced the  Federals  turned  their  attention  toward  these  natural 
allies,  who  had  been  separated  from  them  by  violence  and  threats. 
In  going  to  their  assistance  they  hoped  to  regain  possession  of  one 
of  the  principal  railroads  of  the  Confederacy,  and  by  this  means 
to  cut  the  entire  line  of  defence  of  their  adversaries.  They  could 
not  reach  Knoxville,  the  capital  of  that  district,  except  by  follow- 
ing one  of  the  principal  United  States  roads,  which,  crossing  the 
Alleghanies,  connects  Kentucky  with  North  Carolina.  The  cul- 
minating point  of  this  road  lies  upon  an  eminence  easy  of  defence, 
which  bears  the  name  of  Cumberland  Gap,  and  marks  the  point 
of  contact  of  the  three  States,  Kentucky,  Virginia,  and  Ten- 
nessee. 

General  Zollicoffer  had  been  sent  to  Knoxville  by  the  Confed- 
erate government  to  maintain  its  authority  at  tliat  point.  As 
soon  as  he  learned  that  the  neutrality  of  Kentucky  no  longer  ex- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  371 

isted  even  in  name,  and  that  Polk  occupied  Columbus,  he  made 
his  own  preparations  to  seize  Cumberland  Gap  and  to  descend  the 
opposite  slope.  But  before  we  follow^  him  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
preserve  the  chronological  order  of  the  narrative — to  speak  first 
of  the  new  campaign,  of  wdiich  West  Virginia  was  the  theatre. 

As  we  have  seen,  Buckner,  in  the  west,  was  stationed  around 
Bowling  Green  with  the  Kentucky  militia,  resting  upon  the  State 
of  Tennessee,  whence  he  could  easily  receive  the  reinforcements 
assembled  on  the  frontier,  and  where  he  was  ready  to  come  for- 
ward as  soon  as  the  opportunity  offered.  In  the  centre,  Zolli- 
coifer  only  occupied  East  Tennessee,  but  was  preparing  to  invade 
Kentucky  by  Cumberland  Gap,  while  at  the  east,  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, the  remnant  of  the  army  beaten  by  McClellan  was  reor- 
ganizing and  preparing  for  a  new  campaign. 

To  oppose  these  forces  the  Federals  had,  first,  the  home-guards 
enlisted  in  the  State  itself,  collected  principally  at  Louisville 
and  Camp  Dick  Robinson;  secondly,  the  national  troops  assem- 
bled under  General  Anderson  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ohio,  in 
the  States  of  Indiana  and  Ohio,  and  the  remainder  forming  the 
small  army  commanded  by  Rosecrans  in  West  Virginia.  McClel- 
lan's  campaign,  described  in  a  former  chapter,  has  only  made 
us  acquainted  wuth  the  northern  section  of  that  country.  It  is 
necessary,  therefore,  that  we  should  add  a  few  words  to  describe 
the  whole  of  it. 

Comprised  between  the  principal  range  of  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  course  of  the  Ohio,  it  may  be  divided  into  two  parts  in 
the  direction  of  its  length  :  one,  mountainous,  lying  eastward ;  the 
other,  in  which  the  undulations  of  the  ground  slope  away  gradu- 
ally to  the  bank  of  the  river  Avhich  forms  its  boundary,  at  the 
west.  Magnificent  forests,  springs  gushing  in  every  direction, 
mines  as  yet  but  little  explored,  constitute  the  riches  of  that  pic- 
turesque region,  combining  Avith  the  grand  features  of  American 
scenery  a  variety  of  sites  seldom  to  be  met  with  even  in  the  New 
World.  In  a  military  point  of  view,  the  Ohio  affords  an  easy 
base  of  operations  for  an  army  raif^ed  in  the  free  States.  Two 
secondary  lines  of  communication  give  to  such  an  army  an  easy 
access  to  the  interior :  one,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  at 
the  north;  the  other,  the  Great  Kanawha  River  at  the  south. 


372  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Small  steamers  can  ascend  this  river  nearly  to  the  point  where  it 
is  formed,  by  the  junction  of  Gauley  River  and  New  River,  on 
the  boundaries  of  the  mountain  region.  An  army  resting  upon 
the  other  portions  of  Virginia  would,  on  the  contrary,  encounter 
great  obstacles  among  the  successive  ridges  of  the  Alleghanies, 
across  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  carry  provisions.  On  this 
side,  therefore,  the  Federals  had  a  great  advantage  over  their 
adversaries. 

The  crest  of  the  Alleghanies  forms  a  line  somewhat  sinuous 
in  its  details,  but  generally  following  a  uniform  direction,  which 
separates  the  Atlantic  basin  from  that  of  the  Mexican  gulf.  The 
secondary  chains  detached  from  the  main  ridge  are  nearly  all 
parallel  to  the  general  direction,  and  enclose  long  valleys,  the 
waters  of  which  escape  through  gaps  occurring  at  long  intervals. 
The  longest  range  extends  from  Carricksford,  at  the  north,  to  the 
gorges  of  New  River,  at  the  south^  and  at  nearly  an  equal  distance 
from  these  two  points  an  elevated  cone  called  High  Knob  rises 
from  the  crest  of  the  ridge,  marking  an  important  elevation,  the 
centre  of  a  sort  of  cross  in  that  system  of  mountains.  North  of 
High  Knob  the  chain  bears  the  name  of  Greenbrier  Mountain ;  at 
the  south  it  is  called  Cheat  Mountain,  as  far  as  the  point  where  it 
slopes  down  abruptly  to  the  westward  to  form  the  mass  called 
S'ewell's  Mountain,  which  flanks  the  remainder  of  the  chain  like 
a  bastion.  A  perpendicular  branch  connects  with  the  ridge  of 
the  Alleghenies  to  the  eastward,  separating  the  waters  of  Cheat 
River,  an  affluent  of  the  Monongahela,  from  those  of  Green- 
brier River,  a  tributary  of  New  River.  Lastly,  at  the  west  a 
small  spur  called  Rich  Mountain  detaches  itself,  and  soon  takes 
the  same  direction  as  the  other  chains  to  enclose  the  elevated  val- 
ley of  the  Tygart. 

McClellan's  campaign  has  already  familiarized  the  reader  with 
some  of  these  names.  He  will  remember  that  Garnett,  driven 
southward  by  the  Federals,,  who  had  crossed  Rich  Mountain,  was 
unable  to  find  any  practicable  road  at  Cheat  Mountain  by  which 
to  escape  to  the  east,  and  was  obliged  to  follow  that  impassable 
barrier  by  descending  in  a  northerly  direction  as  far  as  Carricks- 
ford. The  road  wh'ch  McClellan  had  thus  barred  against  him 
fco  the  south  is  the  most  important  in  all  that  region.     Reascend- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  373 

ing  the  valley  by  way  of  Huttonsville,  it  forks  at  a  point  called 
Great  Pass ;  the  branch  which  turns  to  the  east  crosses  Cheat 
Mountain  at  the  defile  of  Cheat  Summit,  descends  into  the  val- 
ley of  Cheat  River,  then  rises  upon  the  perpendicular  ridge  which, 
under  the  name  of  Great  Greenbrier,  connects  the  High  Knob 
with  the  crest  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  proceeds  towards  the  source 
of  Greenbrier  River,  near  a  tavern  celebrated  in  that  wild  region 
by  the  name  of  Travellers'  Repose.  The  road  branches  oif  once 
more  at  this  point  to  enclose  on  both  sides  an  important  counter- 
fort called  Buffalo  Hill;  and,  crossing  the  Alleghany  by  two 
adjoining  passes,  it  descends  into  the  high  valleys  containing  the 
sources  of  the  principal  tributaries  of  the  James  and  the  Poto- 
mac. The  other  branch,  continuing  in  a  southerly  direction  from 
Great  Pass,  reascends  the  whole  valley  of  the  Tygart,  and  passes 
Elk  "Water  at  the  foot  of  the  High  Knob,  where  it  forks  to  cross 
the  mountain  to  the  right  and  left  of  that  elevation,  through  the 
passes  called  Cloverlick  and  Staunton  Pike;  thence  it  descends 
into  the  valley  of  Greenbrier  River.  South  of  the  three  passes  of 
Cheat  Mountain,  Staunton  Pike,  and  Cloverlick,  all  three  very 
near  each  other,  there  is  not  another  practicable  road  to  be  found 
across  Greenbrier  Ridge  before  reaching  Sewell's  Mountain,  the 
slopes  of  which,  being  less  precipitous,  are  crossed  by  two  or  three 
roads  which  gradually  descend  from  east  to  west  into  the  valley 
of  the  Great  Kanawha.  This  valley,  as  we  have  already  stated, 
is  the  principal  artery  of  all  the  surrounding  country,  and  the 
small  town  of  Charleston  is  its  centre.  The  other  water-courses 
which  descend  from  the  Alleghanies  into  the  Ohio  basin  are  only 
so  many  obstacles,  and  afford  no  facilities  for  navigation.  We 
may  mention  the  most  important  among  them :  the  Monongahela 
and  its  tributaries  at  the  north ;  then  the  Little  Kanawha,  running 
from  east  to  west ;  the  Elk  River,  which  passes  Suttonville  and 
empties  into  the  Great  Kanawha  at  Charleston;  and  finally,  the 
Gauley  River  and  the  New  River,  which  unite  to  form  the  Great 
Kanawha  after  crossing  a  singularly  broken  region. 

There  were  consequently  only  three  points  at  which  armies 
could  penetrate  the  barrier  which  intersects  Western  Virginia 
throughout  its  whole  extent :  to  the  northward,  the  space  inter- 
vening between  Carricksford  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 


374  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

road ;  in  the  centre,  the  elevated  defiles  which  are  reached  by  way 
of  Great  Pass  and  Elk  Water ;  and  to  the  southward,  the  passes 
of  Sewell's  Mountain.  The  first  point  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Federals  stationed  in  Pennsylvania  and  in  Maryland,  where  they 
occupied  the  two  slopes  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  second  had  been 
conquered  by  McClellan,  and  the  troops  he  had  posted  at  the  de- 
files rendered  them  inaccessible  to  the  Confederates.  The  passes 
of  Sewell's  Mountain  and  the  valley  of  the  Great  Kanawha  alone 
remained,  and  there  the  struggle  was  to  recommence. 

We  have  followed  the  movements  of  the  Confederate  general 
Wise,  who  had  gone  into  that  country  for  the  purpose  of  raising 
troops  to  defend  the  cause  of  secession,  down  to  about  the  20th  of 
July.  The  population  of  that  district  manifested  more  sympathy 
with  his  views  than  the  rest  of  Western  Virginia,  but  not  suffi- 
cient, however,  to  take  up  arms  and  enlist  under  his  banner. 
Consequently,  after  having  occupied  without  hindrance  the  greater 
portion  of  the  course  of  the  Great  Kanawha,  he  found  himself  in 
a  dangerous  position  from  the  moment  that  Garnett  was  con- 
quered by  McClellan  in  the  north,  and  was  soon  compelled  to 
fall  back  before  the  forces  of  the  Federal  general  Cox.  The  lat- 
ter, in  fact,  supported  by  a  few  steamers,  was  operating  upon  the 
right  bank  of  that  river,  and  threatened  to  cut  off  the  retreat  of 
the  Confederates  towards  the  mountains.  After  a  cavalry  affair  at 
Cissonville,  Wise  evacuated  Charleston,  burning  the  Elk  River 
bridge  behind  him.  On  the  same  day  Cox,  with  the  aid  of  a 
light-draught  steamer  which  had  been  abandoned  by  the  enemy, 
entered  that  town,  established  his  headquarters  in  it,  and  de- 
spatched a  few  troops  in  pursuit  of  Wise.  This  general  had  has- 
tened to  cross  the  Gauley  River,  and  also  to  burn  the  bridge  situ- 
ated near  the  point  of  its  confluence  with  New  River,  to  withdraw 
to  Lewisburg,  on  the  Greenbrier  River,  beyond  Sewell's  Moun- 
tain. The  Confederates  thus  found  themselves  at  the  end  of  July 
driven  back  everywhere  into  the  mountain  region. 

They  resolved  to  make  a  desperate  effort  to  get  out  of  it.  Gen- 
eral Floyd,  who  has  already  been  mentioned  in  our  narrative  as 
Mr.  Buchanan's  Secretary  of  War,  was  sent  from  Richmond  with 
a  few  troops,  to  reinforce  Wise  and  assume  command  in  the  valley 
of  the  Kanawha.    Unfortunately  for  their  cause,  Floyd  and  Wise 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  375 

were  two  characters  not  very  well  calculated  to  harmonize.  The 
former,  proud  of  the  services  he  had  rendered  to  the  pro-slavery 
faction  l:)y  disorganizing  the  Federal  army  during  his  administra- 
tion of  the  War  Department,  made  Wise  feel  the  weight  of  his  au- 
thority, while  the  latter  resisted  him,  believing  that  he  was  better 
acquainted  with  the  country,  with  its  inhabitants  and. the  mode 
of  making  war  there.  The  remnants  of  Pegram's  and  Garnett's 
forces,  as  we  have  stated  above,  had  been  reinforced  and  placed 
under  command  of  General  Lee,  who  was  destined  at  a  later  pe- 
riod to  play  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  the  war.  As  he  had  no  in- 
tention of  disputing  the  northern  part  of  Western  Virginia  with 
his  adversaries,  he  fell  back  towards  the  south,  leaving  only  a  few 
detachments  around  Komney,  and  took  a  position  in  front  of  the 
central  passes  of  the  great  ridge  occupied  by  the  Federals.  His 
small  army,  collected  in  the  valley  of  the  Greenbrier,  was  in 
August  about  sixteen  thousand  strong. 

The  Federals  had,  in  front  of  Floyd  and  Wise,  the  independent 
brigade  of  Cox,  from  two  to  three  thousand  strong.  The  latter, 
following  the  retreat  of  Wise  at  a  distance,  had  occupied  the 
whole  valley  of  the  Kanawha  as  far  as  the  summits  of  Sewell's 
Mountain.  More  to  the  north,  the  forces  commanded  by  McClel- 
lan  until  the  end  of  July  were  now  under  the  orders  of  Rose- 
crans,  an  officer  whom  we  shall  see  invested  with  important  com- 
mands in  the  course  of  the  war.  Although  he  may  have  been  to 
blame  for  his  dilatory  movements  at  Rich  Mountain,  he  was  a 
distinguished  soldier,  who  knew  what  he  could  exact  from  his 
troops,  and  was  beloved  by  them.  If  he  was  not  gifted  with 
great  quickness  of  perception,  he  possessed  the  art  of  combining 
his  operations  judiciously,  and  his  adversaries  rendered  justice 
both  to  his  talents  and  to  his  humanity  towards  the  vanquished. 
The  greater  part  of  his  forces  had  been  brought  back  to  Clarks- 
burg, upon  the  Baltimore  Railroad ;  and  thanks  to  the  reinforce- 
ments he  had  received  in  the  month  of  August,  he  had  now  about 
ten  thousand  men  at  his  disposal,  forming  three  brigades,  under 
the  orders  of  General  Benham  and  Colonels  McCook  and  Scam- 
mon.  A  few  troops  were  watching  the  Confederate  partisans 
near  the  sources  of  the  Potomac,  while  Reynolds's  brigade  occupied 
Cheat  Summit  and  Elk  Water,  in  front  of  Lee's  advanced  posts. 


376  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Both  belligerent  parties  passed  the  first  half  of  the  month  of 
August  in  perfect  quiet.  At  last  Floyd  resolved  to  take  the  of- 
fensive and  to  re-enter  the  valley  of  the  Kanawha ;  Cox  was  now 
too  weak  to  be  able  to  dispute  its  possession  with  him.  Taking 
the  Sewell  Mountain  road,  he  easily  drove  back  the  line  of  the 
Federal  outposts,  and  compelled  Cox  to  fall  back  to  the  south- 
west, upon  New  River.  Leaving  Wise  in  front  of  the  latter  to 
watch  him,  he  proceeded  in  a  north-westerly  direction  towards 
Grauley  River,  in  order  to  cross  that  stream  at  Carnifex  Ferry, 
near  its  confluence  with  Meadow  River,  and  thus  cut  off  Cox  en- 
tirely from  any  reinforcements  which  Rosecrans  might  have  sent 
him.  In  the  region  between  Gauley  and  Elk  River  there  was  but 
a  single  Federal  regiment,  whose  colonel,  named  Tyler,  had  for- 
merly travelled  that  same  district  as  a  dealer  in  furs ;  his  present 
mission  was  to  pursue  the  numerous  bands  of  Confederate  guer- 
illas. On  Floyd's  arrival  at  Carnifex  Ferry,  Tyler,  not  consider- 
ing himself  sufficiently  strong  to  dispute  his  passage,  had  fallen 
back  towards  the  south,  in  the  direction  of  Gauley  Bridge,  near 
the  point  of  confluence  of  the  Gauley  and  New  Rivers.  But  on 
hearing  of  an  accident  which  had  befallen  Floyd,  he  immediately 
retraced  his  steps.  At  Carnifex  Ferry  the  Confederates  had  only 
found  one  barge  and  a  ferry-boat  with  which  to  cross  the  river, 
which  was  nowhere  fordable;  and,  in  the  midst  of  this  long  and 
tedious  operation,  the  boat,  after  capsizing,  had  been  dashed  to 
pieces  against  the  rocks.  Floyd  found  himself  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  river  with  his  infantry  and  two  guns,  separated  from  his 
cavalry  by  a  deep  and  rapid  current.  Having  been  made  ac- 
quainted with  this  fact,  Tyler  sought  to  take  advantage  of  his 
perilous  situation  to  attack  him,  but  he  was  not  quick  enough.  In 
twenty-four  hours  a  new  boat  was  constructed ;  and  on  the  25th 
of  August  Floyd  had  all  his  troops  united  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Gauley.  He  immediately  took  up  his  line  of  march  with  a 
view  of  forestalling  Tyler,  who  had  halted  at  Cross  Lanes,  situ- 
ated a  short  distance  from  that  place.  The  Federals  had  failed  to 
adopt  even  the  simplest  precautions  custolnary  under  such  cir- 
cumstances ;  they  had  sent  out  no  scouts,  and  had  settled  down 
in  their  bivouac  as  if  they  had  no  enemy  to  fear.  This  culpable 
neglect  was  to  cost  them  dear.     On  the  mornino-  of  the  26th 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  377 

Floyd  fell  upon  them  suddenly,  killing  a  few  and  capturing  about 
fifty,  before  they  had  time  to  recover  themselves.  The  remainder 
were  dispersed  in  the  woods,  where  many  of  them  lost  their  way, 
and  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  After  this  success 
Floyd  took  up  a  strong  position  at  Carnifex  Ferry,  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Gauley,  waiting  for  Wise  to  join  him,  in  order  to 
penetrate  still  farther  into  the  region  occupied  by  the  Federals. 
He  surrounded  with  entrenchments  a  steep  hill  which  a  turn  in 
the  river  enveloped  on  two  sides ;  this  hill  was  separated  from  its 
neighboring  heights  to  the  north-east  and  north-west  by  a  deep 
and  wooded  ravine;  the  Confederate  artillery,  well  protected, 
commanded  all  the  approaches,  especially  the  Summerville  road, 
which  passed  through  the  centre  of  the  position. 

These  skirmishes  were  only  the  prelude  to  more  serious  con- 
flicts. Rosecrans  and  Lee  were  both  preparing  for  a  new  cam- 
paign, and  it  was  expected  that  they  would  soon  come  in  collision. 
The  former  was  quicker  than  his  adversary.  About  the  3d  of  Sep- 
tember he  left  Clarksburg  w'ith  his  three  brigades  and  proceeded 
towards  Weston ;  having  reached  that  place,  instead  of  turning 
eastward,  along  the  Beverly  road,  to  march  against  Lee,  as  the 
latter  had  expected,  he  took  a  southerly  direction,  and  soon  arrived 
at  Suttonville.  Then,  crossing  Elk  River,  he  entered  the  scarped 
passes  of  Gauley  Mountain,  which  separate  that  stream  from 
Gauley  River.  The  roads  were  difficult  and  the  gorges  narrow. 
Finding  no  ground  for  a  camp  on  the  road,  a  portion  of  the  troops 
had  to  cross  the  most  dangerous  passes  during  the  night  among 
forests  which  greatly  increased  the  obscurity.  Summerville  was 
reached  at  last ;  and,  as  soon  as  his  soldiers  had  obtained  some  rest, 
Rosecra'ns  set  out  to  descend  the  course  of  the  Gauley  River  in 
search  of  Floyd,  whose  exact  position  he  had  not  been  able  to  as- 
certain, so  great  was  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  information  in  a 
region  so  little  inhabited. 

On  the  evening  of  September  9th,  he  encamped  at  the  foot 
of  Gauley  Mountain,  sixteen  kilometres  from  Summerville  and 
twenty-eight  from  Carnifex  Ferry,  after  having  driven  back  the 
scouts  whom  Floyd  had  sent  to  watch  the  Suttonville  Road.  The 
latter,  in  fact,  ignorant  of  the  approach  of  the  enemy's  army,  was 
preparing  to  make  a  forward  movement.     On  the  10th  the  whole 


378  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Federal  army,  starting  before  daylight,  reached  Summerville 
during  the  morning,  and,  without  halting,  continued  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  Gauley.  Eoseerans's  soldiers  were  mostly  re- 
cruits without  any  experience  of  warfare.  Nevertheless,  they 
bore  the  fatigues  of  that  long  march  well,  and  at  three  o'clock 
they  reached  the  point  where  the  road  which  leads  to  Carnifex 
Ferry  leaves  the  main  road  from  Gauley  Bridge.  Informed  at 
last  of  the  enemy's  position,  Rosecrans  decided  to  take  advantage 
of  the  last  hours  of  daylight  to  make  a  reconnaissance,  notwith- 
standing the  fatigue  of  his  men  and  the  thickness  of  the  forest, 
which  did  not  allow  him  either  to  see  the  dispositions  of  the  Con- 
federates or  to  direct  a  concerted  movement. 

The  redoubts  with  which  Floyd  had  surrounded  the  heights 
of  Carnifex  Ferry  were  mounted  with  a  dozen  guns  and  connected 
by  means  of  strong  breastworks  constructed  of  logs.  He  had 
with  him  eighteen  hundred  men ;  and  as  soon  as  his  pickets  had 
announced  the  approach  of  the  Federals  he  sent  for  Wise,  who, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  remained  in  the  vicinity  of  New  River. 

The  brigade  of  Benliam,  composed  of  the  Tenth,  Twelfth,  and 
Thirteenth  Ohio  regiments,  commanded  by  Colonels  Lytle, 
Smith,  and  Lowe,  was  at  the  head  of  the  Federal  column. 
Lytle  is  the  first  to  descend  into  the  wooded  ravine  which  ex- 
tends to  the  foot  of  the  enemy's  positions.  He  is  hardly  in  sight 
of  these  when  he  is  received  by  a  well-sustained  fire.  After  a  few 
shots  he  emerges  from  the  wood,  and  climbs  the  opposite  acclivi- 
ties, to  reach  the  entrenchments  on  the  heights.  But  he  fails  to 
reach  them.  He  is  himself  severely  wounded,  and  his  soldiers 
fall  back  to  the  skirt  of  the  wood,  behind  which  they  shelter 
themselves,  to  continue  the  fight.  Two  field-pieces  soon  come  to 
their  assistance. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  remainder  of  Benham's  brigade  was  de- 
ploying as  well  as  the  nature  of  the  ground  permitted.  Smith, 
who,  deceived  by  the  report  of  musketry,  had  at  first  moved  to- 
ward the  riffht,  now  bore  to  the  left,  and  ensrao-ed  the  extreme 
right  of  the  Confederate  line  near  the  river.  He  might  have  car- 
ried that  position,  which  was  more  accessible  than  the  others,  if 
he  had  been  supported ;  but  his  small  band,  which  had  been  sent 
on  a  simple  reconnaissance,  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  attack  it 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  379 

alone.  In  tlie  mean  time,  the  generals  being  prevented  by  the 
intervention  of  the  forest  from  seeing  all  the  movements,  the 
troops  engaged  renewed  the  fight  of  their  own  accord,  and  the 
reconnaissance  assumed  the  proportions  of  a  regular  battle.  The 
Twelfth  Ohio  became  separated  in  the  wood,  and  the  largest  por- 
tion of  that  regiment  proceeded  to  take  a  position  on  the  right  of 
the  Tenth.  Lowe  led  it  to  the  assault,  a  little  to  the  left  of  the 
road,  but  was  himself  killed  at  the  first  fire,  and  his  command  was 
driven  back  in  disorder. 

Although  it  was  getting  dark,  Rosecrans  determined  to  make 
one  last  effort.  Part  of  McCook's  brigade  deployed  to  the  right 
of  the  road  to  attack  the  enemy  on  that  side.  Four  guns  were 
sent  to  the  centre,  and  two  of  McCook's  regiments  were  ordered 
to  join  Smith,  who,  gathering  around  him  his  own  regiment  and 
part  of  the  Twelfth,  formed  a  new  column  of  attack.  But  at  the 
moment  when  McCook  appeared  in  front  of  the  Confederate  en- 
trenchments a  counter  order  came  which  put  a  stop  to  his  move- 
ments, and  the  darkness  overtook  Smith's  column  before  it  could 
deploy  on  the  other  side  of  the  ravine  which  it  had  entered. 
Convinced  of  the  impossibility  of  proceeding  farther.  Smith 
brought  back  his  column,  not  without  some  confusion.  During 
that  movement  his  soldiers,  little  accustomed  to  fighting  at  night, 
shot  at  each  other,  thereby  adding  about  thirty  wounded  to  the 
day's  losses. 

The  Federals  had  fought  bravely  and  many  officers  had  fallen, 
but  they  had  been  badly  liandled;  their  movements  had  been 
disconnected,  and  scarcely  two  thousand  soldiers,  with  six  pieces 
of  artillery,  had  taken  part  in  the  conflict,  in  which  they  had 
lost  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men.  They  prepared  to  re- 
new the  attack  on  the  following  day  with  all  their  forces.  But 
Floyd  did  not  give  them  a  chance :  he  had  been  wounded  him- 
self. Wise  had  formally  refused  to  respond  to  his  summons,  and 
his  little  army,  although  it  had  only  lost  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
men,  was  too  much  shaken  to  sustain  another  shock.  He  evacu- 
ated his  camp  during  the  night,  leaving  behind  him  the  Federal 
wounde'l  he  had  captured  a  few  days  before  from  Tyler,  and 
crossed  the  Gauley  to  fail  back  on  Se well's  Mountain,  justly  ac- 
cusing Wise  of  having  abandoned  him  at  the  decisive  moment 


380  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

in  a  position  which  a  timely  reinforcement  would  have  enabled 
him  to  defend. 

During  this  time  a  portion  of  Wise's  troops  had  engaged  in  an 
encounter  of  no  importance,  on  the  left  bank  of  New  E,iver,  with 
some  of  Cox's  detachments.  The  condition  of  the  roads  and  the 
fatiffue  of  his  soldiers  did  not  allow  Rosecrans  to  follow  the  en- 
emy.  He  had,  moreover,  accomplished  the  paramount  object  of 
his  operations  in  driving  the  Confederates  back  into  the  moun- 
tain, and  he  was  master  of  Gauley  River  and  the  Great  Kanawha, 
where  he  was  in  easy  communication  with  Cox. 

In  the  mean  time,  Lee  had  commenced  a  movement  with  a 
view  of  getting  out  of  the  deep  and  narrow  valleys  where  he  was 
shut  up  in  consequence  of  the  occupation  of  the  Cheat  and  Green- 
brier Mountain  defiles  by  his  adversaries.  The  news  of  Rose- 
crans's  march  southward  emboldened  him,  and  he  thought  that 
he  might  be  able  by  skilful  manoeuvring  to  wrest  from  General 
Reynolds's  brigade,  which  had  remained  alone  in  front  of  him,  the 
formidable  positions  it  occupied.  That  general,  with  only  two 
thousand  men,  was  with  the  greatest  portion  of  his  troops  at  Elk 
Water,  where  he  commanded  the  entrance  to  the  Tygart  valley 
and  the  junction  of  the  two  roads  which  cross  Greenbrier  Moun- 
tain. He  had  only  been  a])le  to  place  a  few  pickets  in  the  defiles 
of  this  mountain.  A  strong  detachment  occupied  the  junction  of 
the  Elk  Water  and  Cheat  Summit  roads  at  Great  Pass,  while 
Colonel  Kimball  was  strongly  entrenched  at  the  latter  point  with 
six  hundred  men.  He  held  communication  with  Elk  Water  by 
the  Great  Pass  road,  a  circuitous  route  twenty-eight  kilometres  in 
length,  and  by  a  path  which,  following  the  crest  of  the  mountain 
in  a  direct  line,  reduced  the  distance  to  twelve  kilometres. 

On  the  11th  of  September  Lee  left  Huntersville  with  about 
nine  thousand  men.  He  had  an  enormous  numerical  superiority 
over  the  Federals,  but  his  troops  were  raw,  his  officers  without 
experience,  the  ground  on  which  he  had  to  operate  extremely 
difficult,  and  he  had  committed  the  error  of  adopting  a  plan  of 
attack  Avhich  was  too  complicated  to  be  carried  out  in  all  its 
details  under  such  circumstances.  He  sent  General  H.  R.  Jack- 
son (who  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  celebrated  Stonewall 
Jackson)  with  two  thousand  men  to  invest  Cheat  Summit  by  way 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  381 

of  Travelleis'  Repose,  and  to  turn  that  position  so  as  to  cut  it  off 
from  Great  Pass.  A  second  detachment  was  directed  upon  the 
latter  point,  with  orders  to  cross  the  defile  of  Staunton  Pike,  in 
order  to  proceed  afterwards  by  the  route  between  Cheat  Sum- 
mit and  Elk  Water.  Lee  himself  proposed  to  attack  this  posi- 
tion both  in  front  and  by  his  right,  with  five  or  six  thousand 
men,  joining  hands  with  the  detachment  which  had  been  directed 
upon  Great  Pass,  and  cutting  off  the  retreat  of  the  Federals 
on  that  side.  Jackson's  demonstration  in  the  direction  of  Cheat 
Summit  was  to  be  the  signal  of  this  attack,  which  was  designed 
to  be  the  most  important.  The  Confederates,  being  obliged  to 
follow  narrow  mountain  paths,  took  neither  cavalry  nor  artillery 
with  them. 

On  the  morning  of  September  12th,  their  movement  extended 
all  along  the  line.  Lee  drove  before  him  without  difficulty  the 
weak  posts  which  guarded  the  defiles  of  Greenbrier,  and  de- 
scended towards  Elk  Water,  where  Reynolds  was  preparing  to 
defend  himself  as  Avell  as  he  could ;  the  detachment  which  had 
been  sent  in  the  direction  of  Great  Pass  reached,  without  meeting 
the  enemy,  the  Elk  Water  road,  and  thus  cut  off  all  communication 
between  Reynolds's  troops  and  those  of  Kimball.  Jackson,  after 
a  very  fatiguing  march,  had  succeeded,  on  his  part,  in  investing 
the  jjositions  of  the  latter,  and  in  placing  himself  between  them 
and  Great  Pass,  while  a  detachment  attacked  their  outposts  in 
front  along  the  eastern  slope  of  Cheat  Mountain.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  Confederates  had  only  to  make  one  more  effort  to  anni- 
hilate their  opponents,  isolated  as  they  were  and  surrounded  on 
every  side.  But  Lee  did  not  exhibit  on  that  occasion  those 
great  military  talents  which  he  was  to  display  subsequently  on  a 
wider  field,  and  that  effort  was  not  made.  He  was  deceived  by 
the  determined  attitude  of  the  Federals  as  to  their  numerical 
strength,  and  did  not  dare  to  attack  them  in  the  strong  positions 
they  occupied.  After  a  few  skirmishes,  in  which  his  young  sol- 
diers showed  but  little  firmness,  Jackson  confined  himself  to 
watching  Kimball's  encampments ;  after  which,  on  the  following 
day,  the  13th,  he  withdrew,  almost  without  striking  a  blow.  The 
detachment  which  had  been  sent  against  Great  Pass  did  the 
Bame ;  and  Lee,  who  was  still  waiting  for  Jackson  to  begin  the 


382  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

action,  that  he  might  assault  the  positions  of  Elk  Water,  did  not 
venture  to  risk  that  attack,  although  the  chances  were  greatly  in 
his  favor.  Indeed,  Kimball's  small  detachment  could  have  been 
of  no  assistance  to  Reynolds,  who  was  already  surrounded  by 
forces  three  times  as  numerous  as  his  own.  A  last  attempt, 
which  was  but  faintly  made,  on  the  15th,  against  Cheat  Summit, 
was  frustrated  by  the  stubborn  resistance  of  the  Federals,  who 
had  reopened  communication  over  the  mountain  between  Sum- 
mit and  Elk  Water ;  and  Lee  brought  back  his  fatigued  and  dis- 
couraged troops  into  the  valley  of  the  Greenbrier. 

Unable  to  extricate  himself  by  way  of  Cheat  Mountain  from 
the  blind  alley  in  which  he  found  himself,  he  determined  to  look 
elsewhere  for  a  more  suitable  battle-field,  and  to  follow  up  along 
the  Great  Kanawha  that  army  of  Rosecrans  the  left  flank  of 
which  Reynolds  had  so  well  jarotected.  A  few  days  after  his 
return  to  Huntersville  he  took  up  his  line  of  march  towards  the 
South  with  the  greatest  portion  of  his  forces,  and  strongly  rein- 
forced Floyd  and  Wise,  whom  he  found  occujaying  the  crests  of 
Sewell's  Mountain.  He  left  Jackson  with  his  brigade  of  two 
thousand  five  hundred  men  behind  him,  to  guard  the  passes  of 
the  Alleghanies  which  led  into  Eastern  Virginia.  Jackson,  being 
too  weak  to  occupy  the  whole  of  Greenbrier  valley,  left  the  defile 
of  Travellers'  Repose,  to  take  position  on  the  heights  of  Buffalo 
Hill,  a  natural  terrace,  easily  fortified,  from  which  he  could  com- 
mand the  most  important  road  crossing  the  Alleghanies. 

Reynolds,  having  received  reinforcements,  and  knowing  tliat 
the  only  enemy  left  in  front  of  him  was  Jackson's  small  force,  re- 
solved to  assume  the  offensive,  and  started  with  about  six  thou- 
sand men  and  thirteen  field-pieces  for  the  purpose  of  attacking 
him  at  Buffalo  Hill.  On  the  morning  of  October  3cl  he  arrived 
in  siffht  of  that  hill,  where  the  Confederates  had  constructed  sev- 
eral  tiers  of  redoubts,  behind  which  they  waited  for  their  adver- 
sary, full  of  confidence  in  the  strength  of  their  position.  After 
Reynolds's  infantry  had  compelled  the  enemy  to  retire  into  his 
entrenchments  the  Federal  artillery,  which  was  posted  in  an  open 
plain  extending  to  the  foot  of  Buffalo  Hill,  opened  fire  upon  the 
Confederate  camp.  The  superiority  both  in  the  number  and  in 
the  calibre  of  these  field-pieces  made  up  for  the  disadvantages 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  383 

of  the  ground ;  and  after  a  few  hours  the  fire  of  the  Confederates 
ceased  almost  entirely.  At  the  request  of  his  colonels,  Reynolds 
then  gave  the  signal  for  an  infantry  attack  upon  Jackson's  posi- 
tions. Three  Federal  regiments  gained  the  heights  which  are  a 
continuation  of  Buffalo  Hill  on  the  left,  and  afterwards  advanced 
for  the  purpose  of  charging  the  enemy's  entrenchments  in  flank  ; 
but  being  received  by  a  vigorous  discharge  of  musketry,  the  regi- 
ment heading  the  column  immediately  turned  round,  fell  back  in 
great  disorder  upon  the  other  two  regiments,  and  stopped  their 
progress.  After  this  first  check,  Reynolds,  being  convinced  that 
he  could  not  dislodge  Jackson  by  main  force,  ordered  a  retreat 
and  returned  to  Cheat  Mountain  ;  his  loss  amounted  to  only  eight 
killed  and  ten  Avounded. 

After  this  affair  more  than  one  month  elapsed  without  any  en- 
counter taking  place  between  the  two  parties,  except  in  the  ex- 
treme north  of  Virginia,  near  the  sources  of  the  Potomac.  We 
have  stated  that  on  this  side  the  Federals,  being  masters  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  of  Maryland,  occupied  the  two  slopes  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies ;  General  Kelley's  brigade  covered  the  line  of  the  Balti- 
more Railway,  which  follows  the  windings  of  the  Potomac  across 
the  eastern  ridges  of  that  chain  as  far  as  the  neighborhood  of  Han- 
cock, the  northernmost  point  reached  by  the  river. 

So  extensive  a  line  was  always  exposed  to  incursions  from  the 
enemy,  who  found  an  easy  shelter  among  the  long  valleys  per- 
pendicular to  the  Potomac.  In  the  month  of  October  the  small 
town  of  Romney,  situated  in  one  of  these  valleys,  had  become  the 
rendezvous  of  a  Confederate  force  sufficiently  numerous  to  serious- 
ly threaten  the  line  of  railway  w^hich  Kelley  had  been  instructed 
to  guard.  That  general  determined  to  disperse  it.  Leaving  New 
Creek  valley  with  two  regiments  of  infantry,  three  pieces  of  ar- 
tillery, and  a  few  squadrons  of  cavalry,  he  proceeded  eastward  to- 
wards Romney,  while  an  infantry  regiment,  starting  from  Cum- 
berland, in  Maryland,  was  to  arrive  at  the  same  time  with  him- 
self before  that  town,  passing  through  Frankfort  and  Springfield. 
This  combined  movement  was  efiected  on  the  26th  of  October. 
The  detachment  from  Cumberland  reached  the  river,  which  south 
of  the  Potomac  is  called  the  Branch,  a  few  kilometres  ])elow  Rom- 
ney; the  bridge  which  crosses  that  water-course  had  been  de- 


38-1  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

stroyed,  and  the  passage  was  guarded  by  three  hundred  Confed- 
erates and  one  piece  of  artillery.  After  a  fruitless  attempt  to 
force  a  passage  the  Federals  withdrew.  But  in  the  mean  while, 
Kelley's  column  had  been  more  fortunate.  It  had  met  the  enemy 
on  the  summit  of  Middle  Ridge,  and  had  easily  driven  him  back 
into  the  valley  of  the  Southern  Potomac.  The  little  town  of 
Romney  stands  on  the  right  side  of  that  river.  When  the  Fed- 
erals appeared  on  the  other  side,  a  vigorous  cannonade  commenced, 
during  which  they  sustained  a  few  losses ;  but  their  cavalry  crossed 
the  Potomac,  easily  fordable  at  that  season  of  the  year,  and  charged 
the  Confederates,  while  the  infantry,  carrying  the  bridge  of  the 
main  road,  followed  closely.  The  defenders  of  Romney,  staggered 
by  the  first  shock,  fled  in  the  greatest  disorder  towards  Winches- 
ter, abandoning  a  considerable  number  of  prisoners,  all  their  ma- 
teriel, and  two  pieces  of  artillery. 

We  left  Lee  effecting  a  junction  with  Floyd  and  Wise  along 
the  crests  of  Sevvell's  Mountain.  The  army  thus  formed,  of  which 
he  took  command,  numbered  more  than  twenty  thousand  men. 
In  the  mean  time,  Rosecrans,  after  crossing  the  Gauley,  had  ad- 
vanced eastward  as  far  as  the  foot  of  the  Confederates'  position. 
He  shut  them  up  once  more  within  the  mountainous  region,  al- 
though he  had  only  the  three  brigades  brought  from  Clarksburg 
and  that  of  Cox,  all  together  about  twelve  thousand  men.  Lee, 
notwithstanding  his  numerical  superiority,  did  not  deem  it  proper 
to  disturb  him,  and  confined  himself  to  sending  a  fcAV  troops  upon 
the  left  bank  of  the  Great  Kanawha.  These  troops  were  sur- 
prised, on  the  25th  of  September,  in  an  entrenched  camp  near 
Chapmansville,  by  a  regiment  of  Federal  infantry,  which  routed 
them  completely,  after  killing  and  wounding  about  forty  men. 

Dissensions  prevailed  in  the  Confederate  camp.  Lee  had  found 
Floyd  posted  on  a  lower  ridge  situated  north  of  Sewell's  Moun- 
tain, called  Meadow  Bluff,  while  Wise,  unwilling  to  join  him  there, 
remained  inactive  aloiig  the  principal  ridge.  In  approving  the 
course  of  the  latter,  he  gave  dissatisfaction  to  the  late  Secretary 
of  War,  who  reluctantly  joined  the  rest  of  the  Confederate  army 
on  Sewell's  Mountain.  Lee  strengthened  his  position  with  great 
care,  so  that  Rosecrans  did  not  feel  sufficiently  strong  to  attack 
it,  but  he  had  no  idea  of  assuming  the  offensive  himself;  and  the 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  385 

Federal  general,  after  remaining  a  few  weeks  in  front  of  him,  was 
enabled  to  fall  back,  and  quietly  take  a  position  between  the 
Gauley  and  New  Rivers.  Shortly  after  this  Lee  was  recalled 
and  sent  into  South  Carolina.  Wise,  who  could  not  agree  with 
Floyd,  was  deprived  of  his  command,  and  a  portion  of  the 
army  under  General  Loring  went  into  the  valley  of  Virginia  to 
swell  the  forces  of  Stonewall  Jackson. 

In  the  mean  while,  notwithstanding  the  diminution  of  his 
troops,  Floyd  was  not  willing  to  give  up  the  game.  He  crossed 
New  River,  marched  down  the  left  bank,  and  on  the  30th  of 
October  took  up  a  position  on  the  heights  of  Cotton  Hill.  These 
hills  overlook  the  confluence  of  the  Gauley  and  New  River,  and 
command  the  road  from  Charleston  to  Lewisburg,  by  which  Rose- 
crans  was  obtaining  supplies  for  his  army.  In  place  of  Gauley 
Bridge,  which  had  been  destroyed,  the  Federals  had  established  a 
ferry-boat,  the  trips  of  which  were  soon  interrupted  by  Floyd's 
artillery,  which  had  been  dragged  with  great  difficulty  to  the 
summit  of  Cotton  Hill.  The  Confederate  skirmishers,  at  the  same 
time,  rendered  the  use  of  the  road  extremely  dangerous.  Rose- 
crans  was  obliged  to  bring  the  greatest  portion  of  his  artillery, 
■with  large  escorts,  to  protect  the  cummunicationp  indispensable  to 
the  existence  of  his  men.  At  last,  about  the  7th  of  November, 
the  Confederates  decided  to  leave  Cotton  Hill,  and  took  a  posi- 
tion a  little  higher  up,  on  Laurel  Creek.  Rosecrans  determined, 
in  turn,  to  hunt  them  up  on  the  other  side  of  New  River.  On  the 
6th  of  November,  he  sent  the  brigade  of  Benham  to  take  a  posi- 
tion a  little  below  the  confluence  of  that  stream  and  the  Kanawha 
on  the  left  bank,  and  near  the  mouth  of  Loop  Creek  ;  on  the  11th 
he  took  up  his  march  for  the  purpose  of  striking  Floyd's  camp 
in  the  rear ;  while  a  brigade  lately  placed  under  General  Schenck's 
command  was  preparing  to  cross  the  Kanawha  opposite  Fayette- 
ville,  in  order  to  cut  off"  his  retreat  on  that  side.  The  brigade  of 
Benham  was  divided  into  two  columns :  one,  a  thousand  strong, 
turning  to  the  right,  marched  upon  Cassidy's  Mill,  south  of  the 
enemy's  camp,  while  Benham  with  five  hundred  men  and  six  guns 
proceeded  to  the  same  point  by  way  of  Cotton  Hill.  Benham  met 
the  enemy  in  the  afternoon  of  the  12th  at  Laurel  Creek.  Floyd 
had  struck  his  camp,  and  only  defended  the  passage  of  the  stream 

Vol.  I.— 25 


386  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

long  enough  to  cover  his  retreat.  Schenck  not  having  be-en  able 
to  cross  Ne^v  River,  which  was  swollen  by  the  rain,  that  retreat 
was  effected  without  difficulty ;  and  Benham's  two  columns,  worn 
out  by  a  long  march,  only  arrived  at  Fayetteville  to  find  that  the 
Confederates  were  already  far  away  from  that  town.  Neverthe- 
less, on  the  morning  of  the  13th  the  Federal  general  went  in 
pursuit  of  them  along  the  Beckley  (or  Raleigh  Court-house) 
road,  and  came  up  with  them  a  short  distance  from  that  place  at 
the  Maiboy  farm.  Floyd's  small  army  was  retreating  in  great 
disorder  and  with  much  difficulty  through  roads  entirely  broken 
up  by  the  rain.  The  Confederate  cavalry,  commanded  by  Col- 
onel Croghan,  anxious  to  protect  the  retreat,  dismounted  to  defend 
.a  height  upon  which  the  road  followed  by  the  Federals  ascended. 
But  at  the  first  fire  Croghan  was  killed,  and  his  startled  soldiers 
dispersed  into  the  woods.  Benham  had  to  content  himself  with 
picking  up  a  few  prisoners,  and  very  soon  halted  his  exhausted 
infantry.  He  had  scarcely  rejoined  Rosecrans  when  a  heavy  fall 
of  snow  came  to  render  military  operations  impossible  in  that 
wild  country.  The  Confederates  were  definitively  banished  into 
the  mountainous  region. 

Two  unimportant  engagements,  one  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Ohio 
and  the  other  near  Cheat  Mountain,  alone  disturbed  the  quiet 
which  winter  imposed  upon  the  belligerents  in  Western  Virginia. 
The  first  took  place  on  the  9th  of  November  at  Guyandotte,  a 
large  village  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  of  that  name  in 
Ohio.  That  portion  of  Western  Virginia  lying  south  of  the 
Great  Kanawha  had  always  been  abandoned  to  small  hostile 
bands,  who  carried  on  a  real  guerilla  warfare.  One  of  these 
bands,  commanded  by  the  Confederate  Jenkins,  surprised  a  camp 
of  instruction  at  Guyandotte,  occupied  by  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Federals.  The  latter  had  kept  guard  with  the  carelessness 
of  inexperienced  soldiers ;  the  secessionists,  M^ho  were  numerous 
at  Guyandotte,  gave  Jenkins  all  the  information  he  required,  and 
in  an  instant  the  Federals  were  surrounded  and  nearly  all  cap- 
tured or  killed.  On  the  day  following,  some  troops  from  the 
State  of  Ohio  arrived  on  a  steamer  for  the  purpose  of  avenging 
them ;  but  finding  no  longer  any  trace  of  the  enemy,  they  com- 
mitted an  act  of  barbarity  of  which  the  American  war  fortunately 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  387 

presents  but  few  examples :  Guyandotte  was  given  up  to  the 
flames. 

The  other  battle  w^as  fought  on  the  13th  of  December  by  Gen- 
eral Milroy,  who  had  succeeded  Reynolds  in  command  of  the 
troops  posted  on  Cheat  Mountain.  He  resolved  to  renew  the 
attack  of  his  predecessor  upon  the  entrenched  camp  of  Buffalo 
Hill,  which  was  occupied  by  Colonel  E.  Johnson  with  tAvo  thou- 
sand Confederates.  Milroy  had  only  three  thousand  men  under 
his  command.  At  daybreak  on  the  13th  he  arrived  with  two 
columns  in  front  of  Johnson's  works.  The  first  column  was  to 
attack  them  in  front,  and  the  second  to  prepare  for  this  assault  by 
carrying  one  of  the  enemy's  batteries  by  a  flank  movement.  The 
obstacles  presented  by  the  configuration  of  the  ground  retarded 
this  manoeuvre ;  and  the  attack  of  the  first  column,  which  had  not 
waited  for  the  preconcerted  movement  on  the  battery,  was  re- 
pulsed. It,  however,  succeeded  in  checking  an  offensive  return 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  Confederates,  who  had  come  out  of 
their  entrenchments  to  take  advantage  of  the  check  sustained  by 
the  Federals. 

The  second  column,  Mdiich  had  at  last  arrived  in  position,  im- 
mediately renewed  the  fight,  but  without  any  better  success.  The 
front  ranks  gave  way ;  the  rest  continued  firing,  without  daring 
to  advance ;  and  soon  Milroy,  giving  up  his  project,  retraced  his 
steps  towards  Cheat  Mountain.  This  battle  was  a  bloody  one, 
each  party  having  had  about  two  hundred  men  disabled.  An 
expedition  which  proceeded  as  far  as  Huntersville,  wdiere  it  de- 
stroyed some  Confederate  d^p6ts,  compensated  the  Federals  to  a 
small  extent  for  their  double  failure  at  Buffalo  Hill. 

The  campaign  was  at  an  end ;  and  Rosecrans,  leaving  only  a 
few  detachments  behind  to  guard  the  advanced  positions,  brought 
back  his  main  forces  into  the  more  populous  region,  where  he 
found  it  less  difficult  to  subsist  them.  This  disconnected  cam- 
paign— marked  by  accidental  encounters  and  incomplete  manoeu- 
vres, in  which  generals  who,  at  a  later  period,  were  to  display  re- 
markable activity,  remained  for  weeks  in  presence  of  each  other 
without  exchanging  a  shot — presents  a  striking  example  of  the 
difficulties  which  paralyzed  the  ablest  chiefs  at  the  beginning  of 
that  war,  which  was  so  new  to  all.     We  shall  find  similar  charac- 


388     •  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

teristlcs  in  the  operations  of  which  Kentucky  was  the  scene  at  the 
same  period. 

On  the  7th  of  September  the  legislature  of  that  State  was  ap- 
prised of  the  Confederate  invasion  by  a  message  from  the  gov- 
ernor. That  functionary,  true  to  the  cause  of  the  South,  instead 
of  protesting  against  such  violence,  solicited  authority  to  break  up 
all  assemblages  of  Union  troops.  But  the  two  chambers  answered 
him  on  the  12th  by  requesting  the  Federal  government  to  protect 
Kentucky  against  the  invaders,  and  by  conferring  the  command 
of  the  home-guards  upon  General  Anderson.  That  officer  imme- 
diately took  up  his  quarters  at  Louisville,  to  organize  the  militia 
assembled  at  Camp  Joe  Holt,  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  city,  and 
which  General  Rousseau  had  already  begun  to  drill.  The  con- 
flict had  commenced  in  Kentucky.  One  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
secession  party,  Mr.  Morehead,  was  arrested  in  Louisville  and 
sent  to  Fort  Lafayette ;  the  rest  took  refuge  with  the  Confederate 
armies.  Among  them  might  be  seen  Mr.  Breckinridge,  Vice- 
President  of  the  republic  under  Mr.  Buchanan,  a  skilful  and  bold 
politician,  but  who,  under  the  Confederate  uniform,  made  but  a 
poor  general ;  Humphrey  Marshall,  the  brilliant  cavalry  colonel 
of  the  Mexican  war ;  finally,  John  Morgan,  who  was  soon  to 
make  himself  known  as  the  bravest  and  most  daring  of  guerilla 
chiefs. 

While  Anderson  was  assuming  command  of  the  troops  en- 
trusted to  him,  Buckner  was  preparing  to  inaugurate  the  cam- 
paign by  a  bold  stroke.  This  was  nothing  less  than  to  traverse 
the  whole  State  of  Kentucky  by  rail,  so  as  to  reach  Louisville 
with  a  sufficient  number  of  troops  to  take  possession  of  that  city 
and  to  hoist  the  Confederate  flag  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  Such 
an  attempt  could  only  have  been  made  amid  the  confusion  created 
by  late  events  and  the  uncertainty  which  still  prevailed  in  all 
minds.  It  failed  of  success.  Buckner's  troops  were  put  on  sev- 
eral trains  and  proceeded  northward,  taking  care  to  cut  the  tele- 
graph as  they  advanced,  and  to  stop  every  supply-train  which 
they  met.  The  raihvay  employes,  being  without  news,  and  find- 
ing the  regular  service  interrupted,  sent  a  locomotive  on  a  recon- 
naissance, but  it  also  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Confederates. 
Fortunately,  the  fireman  was  able  to  escape,  and,  finding  a  hand- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  389 

car,  returned  to  Louisville  to  announce  the  approach  of  the 
enemy.  At  the  same  time,  a  Bowling  Green  Unionist,  seeing 
the  trains  arrive  loaded  with  rebel  troops,  took  up  one  of  the 
rails  from  the  track,  thereby  causing  an  accident  which  involved 
the  loss  of  much  precious  time.  General  *W.  T.  Sherman,  whom 
we  have  already  noticed  in  the  Bull  Run  campaign,  was  sent  by 
Anderson,  with  all  the  forces  it  was  possible  to  collect,  to  meet  the 
advance  of  the  Confederates.  Learning  that  his  movements  were 
known  and  that  the  enemy  was  on  the  watch  for  him,  Buckner, 
who  had  already  reached  the  suburbs  of  Elizabethtown,  not  far 
from  the  Ohio,  halted  and  fell  back  upon  Bowling  Green,  the  gar- 
rison and  fortifications  of  which  he  strengthened.  Sherman,  on 
his  part,  selected  the  neighborhood  of  Elizabethtown  as  a  place 
of  rendezvous  for  all  the  scattered  elements  which  were  soon  to 
form  the  army  of  the  Cumberland. 

During  this  time,  as  we  have  stated,  ZoUicoffer  was  preparing 
to  defend  Eastern  Tennessee  by  assuming  the  offensive,  and  in- 
vading Kentucky.  On  the  14th  of  September  he  occupied  Cum- 
berland Gup.  At  its  foot  lay  the  deep  and  extensive  valley  of 
the  Cumberland  River,  which  flows  from  east  to  west,  and  waters 
the  whole  of  the  south-eastern  section  of  the  State.  Beyond  it  a 
chain  of  strong  hills  separates  this  valley  from  the  numerous 
water-courses  which  run  northward  through  a  country  which 
becomes  gradually  more  and  more  level,  and  meet  to  form  the 
Kentucky  River,  one  of  the  tributaries  of  the  Ohio.  ZoUicoffer, 
descending  from  Cumberland  Gap  on  the  19th  of  September,  dis- 
persed a  gathering  of  Union  recruits  at  Barboursville,  a  large  vil- 
lage situated  at  a  point  where  the  high  road  from  Lexington  crosses 
the  Cumberland.  He  took  up  his  quarters  there,  and  occupied 
the  whole  upper  valley  of  that  river.  In  spite  of  his  prockima- 
tions,  his  soldiers  committed  acts  of  depredation,  which  rendered 
them  very  unpopular  in  those  districts  which  they  pretended  to 
free  from  Federal  rule. 

'The  Unionists  therefore  determined  to  dispute  the  possession 
of  the  country  with  them.  Gathering  around  Colonel  Garrard,  a 
highly-esteemed  chief,  in  Eastern  Kentucky,  they  hastened  to  arm 
and  organize.  They  had  selected  as  their  rallying-point  a  strong 
position  in  the  centre  of  the  disturbed  district,  which  separates  the 


390  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

valley  of  the  Cumberland  from  the  vast  and  rich  plain  known  by 
the  name  of  the  "blue-grass"  region.  The  camp  of  Garrard,  to 
which  he  had  given  the  name  of  Wild  Cat,  was  situated  a  little  to 
the  north  of  London,  the  first  village  to  be  met  on  the  Lexington 
road  after  crossing  the  Cumberland  at  Barboursville.  On  leaving 
London  the  road  forks ;  one  branch,  following  the  valley,  runs 
westward  towards  Crab  Orchard,  Camp  Dickson,  and  Frankfort ; 
the  other  branch,  which  leads  to  Richmond  and  Lexington,  rises 
upon  the  hills  which  skirt  the  valley,  crosses  Rockcastle  Creek, 
and  penetrates  into  another  jumble  of  rocks  {massif)  called  Big 
Hill.  In  the  pass  between  London  and  Rockcastle  Creek  Wild 
Cat  Camp  was  situated,  surrounded  by  forests,  flanked  by  scarped 
rocks,  and  only  approachable  by  narrow  and  tortuous  roads,  easy 
to  defend,  but  surrounded  by  positions  which  must  be  occupied, 
and  which  required  a  numerous  garrison.  A  ridge  which  com- 
manded the  camp  to  the  east,  at  the  south-east  a  mound  (inamelon) 
called  Round  Hill,  and  two  cliffs  jutting  out  on  the  south  like  two 
bastions  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  London  road,  constituted  the 
main  features  of  these  positions,  which  were  separated  from  each 
other  by  deep  ravines. 

After  one  month  of  inactivity,  ZollicoflPer  made  an  attempt  to 
surprise  the  Federal  camp,  where  no  one  ever  expected  to  see  him 
again.  Garrard's  force,  consisting  of  the  skeletons  of  three  regi- 
ments, only  numbered  six  hundred  effective  men,  three  hundred 
of  them  being  in  the  hospital.  Starting  on  the  12th  or  13th  of 
October  with  seven  regiments  and  one  battery,  about  three  thou- 
sand men  in  all,  Zollicoflfer  only  arrived  in  front  of  the  Federal 
positions  on  the  21st.  Through  his  want  of  activity  he  lost  the 
opportunity  of  taking  Garrard  unawares.  The  latter,  having  re- 
solved to  defend  himself,  even  without  reinforcements,  was  wait- 
ing with  his  small  band  for  the  arrival  of  a  few  regiments  sta- 
tioned in  the  "  blue-grass  "  region,  whom  he  had  apprised  of  the 
approach  of  the  enemy.  If  Zollicoflfer  had  attacked  him  on  the 
20th,  he  would  probably  have  obtained  an  easy  victory ;  "but  Gen- 
eral Schopf,  hastening  during  the  night  to  respond  to  Garrard's 
call,  arrived  with  two  regiments  of  infantry  and  one  of  cavalry. 
The  positions,  which  had  previously  only  been  guarded  by  ad- 
vanced sentinels,  were  now  strongly  occupied;  and  when,  on  the- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  391 

morning  of  the  21st,  two  Tennessee  regiments  advanced,  full  of 
confidence,  to  attack  E.ound  Hill,  they  met  with  a  resistance  they 
had  not  expected.  Bravely  advancing  under  fire,  they  made  the 
defenders  waver  for  an  instant,  but  they  were  immediately  ral- 
lied and  soon  recovered  their  advantage,  driving  the  enemy  back 
into  the  valley.  A  few  hours  after  this  first  encounter  the  Fed- 
erals received  new  reinforcements.  They  jjlaced  their  artillery  in 
position,  and  thus  felt  perfectly  prepar°d.  Towards  two  o'clock 
Zollicoffer  renewed  the  attack  on  their  right,  and  the  fighting  soon 
became  general.  The  assailants  were  repulsed  on  every  side,  and 
their  defeat  cost  them  the  more  dear  in  proportion  to  the  greater 
audacity  they  had  displayed.  On  that  very  evening  they  re- 
traced their  steps  towards  the  south. 

But,  shortly  after,  the  Federals  lost,  through  their  own  fault,  all 
the  advantages  they  had  first  obtained.  In  the  first  fortnight  of 
November  it  was  reported  that  a  strong  detachment  had  left 
Bowling  Green  and  was  proceeding  eastward ;  General  Schopf,  being 
under  the  impression  that  he  was  about  to  be  turned,  abandoned 
the  positions  he  had  lately  so  well  defended,  before  an  imaginary 
foe.  While  Zollicoffer  Avas  quietly  resting  in  the  valley  of  the 
Cumberland,  and  no  Confederate  troops  were  approaching  Wild 
CatCamp,t]ie  Federals  were  hastening  away  from  that  place  by 
the  Lexington  road ;  and  tlieir  retreat  was  so  disorderly  that  if 
there  had  been  an  enemy  in  sight  it  might  have  been  called  a 
rout.  In  consequence  of  this  panic  a  portion  of  the  "  blue- 
grass  "  region  was  abandoned  to  the  guerillas  of  both  camps. 

In  the  mean  wliile,  from  the  early  part  of  October  the  Federal 
authorities  were  preparing,  east  of  Lexington,  an  expedition 
Avhich  was  to  penetrate  into  Western  Virginia  from  Kentucky. 
The  Confederates,  although  not  sufficiently  numerous  to  occupy 
the  wOiole  country,  watched  their  adversaries  closely,  making  up 
in  activity  for  their  want  of  numerical  strength.  But  these  haz- 
ardous tactics  did  not  always  prove  successful ;  thus,  on  the  8th 
of  October,  three  hundred  of  them  were  surprised  at  Hillsborough, 
Fleming  county,  by  a  small  Federal  detachment,  which  put  them 
to  flight,  killing  eleven,  wounding  twenty-nine,  and  capturing 
twent}  -two  men.  The  expedition,  commanded  by  General  Nel- 
son, was  to  go  up  the  Licking  River,  pass  through  Prestonburg 


392  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and  Piketon  (or  Pikeville),  to  cross  the  Cumberland  Mountains, 
and  finally  descend  upon  Lebanon  in  the  valley  of  Clinch  River, 
whence  it  could  cut  off  the  communications  between  Virginia  and 
Tennessee.  On  the  24th  of  October  its  advance  column,  after  a 
brief  skirmish,  took  possession  of  the  village  of  West  Liberty, 
and  on  the  6th  of  November  a  column  of  about  three  thousand 
Federals  occupied  Prestonburg,  on  the  Big  Sandy.  This  tributary 
of  the  Ohio  is  navigable  above  Piketon,  and  thus  afforded  Nel- 
son great  facilities  for  revictualling  his  .army.  The  Confederates 
had  collected  in  haste  about  one  thousand  men,  under  Colonel 
Williams,  for  the  purpose  of  covering  Piketon,  and  especially  the 
defile  of  Pound  Gap  in  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  a  pass  of  the 
highest  importance  to  them,  for  it  was  the  entrance  into  a  district 
of  West  Virginia  whence  they  drew  large  supplies  of  salt  and 
lead.  Nelson  was  trying  to  surround  Williams,  so  as  to  capture 
him,  with  all  his  troops,  at  Piketon.  This  very  difficult  man- 
oeuvre was  then  very  popular  with  the  American  generals ;  and  a 
newspaper  correspondent  who  accompanied  Nelson,  affirming  in 
advance  the  success  of  the  movement,  had  the  audacity  to  tele- 
graph to  the  North  that  Williams  had  laid  down  his  arms  and 
surrendered  with  all  his  men.  The  public,  still  full  of  illusions, 
believed  the  report  of  this  imaginary  victory  for  two  days.  Nel- 
son's expedition  was  to  have  more  modest  results.  On  the  7th 
of  November  he  had  sent  one  half  of  his  forces  northward,  by 
way  of  John's  Creek  valley,  lying  parallel  to  that  of  Big  Sandy, 
with  instructions  to  fall  back  upon  the  latter,  so  as  to  take  Pike- 
ton in  rear.  He  set  out  himself  on  the  9th  by  the  direct  road 
which  follows  the  Big  Sandy ;  he  had  a  march  of  forty  kilometres 
to  perform.  But  Williams  was  on  his  guard ;  carrying  all  his 
maUriel  and  his  depots  towards  Pound  Gap,  and  sending  a  few 
skirmishers  to  detain  the  Federals  upon  John's  Creek,  he  went, 
with  seven  hundred  men,  to  meet  Nelson,  and  waited  for  him  at 
the  Ivy  Creek  pass.  The  road,  constructed  like  a  cornice  along 
the  side  of  a  steep  mountain,  made  an  abrupt  turn  at  this  point. 
Just  as  the  head  of  the  Federal  column  passed  this  turning,  it  re- 
ceived a  murderous  fire  in  front,  while  some  troops  posted  on  the 
other  side  of  the  rivei  directed  a  heavy  discharge  of  musketry 
upon  its  flank.     Nelson's  soldiers  drew  back  in  confusion  before 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  393 

tills  unexpected  attack ;  then,  rallying,  they  carried  the  position 
where  the  Confederates  were  lying  in  ambush,  at  the  cost  of  five 
killed  and  twenty- five  wounded,  but  they  were  unable  to  reach 
Piketon  until  the  morning  of  the  10th  ;  Williams,  passing  through 
that  village  after  the  fight  at  Ivy  Creek,  had  evacuated  it  towards 
night,  just  in  time  to  escape  the  Federal  column,  which  was  com- 
ing up  by  way  of  John's  Creek  to  cut  off  his  retreat.  He  left 
scarcely  anything  behind  him,  and  went  to  take  position  at  Pound 
Gap.  His  little  band  would  not  have  been  able  to  defend  that 
position  for  any  length  of  time ;  but  Nelson  never  came  to  attack 
it,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  overtaken  by  winter  in  Eastern  Ken- 
tucky, without  having  done  anything  to  continue  the  campaign. 
The  Unionists  of  Eastern  Tennessee,  who  were  waiting  for  him 
and  had  been  preparing  to  assist  him,  were  unable  to  attempt  any 
serious  operations,  and  confined  themselves  to  the,  task  of  destroy- 
ing several  railway  bridges  between  Knoxville  and  Lynchburg. 
They  thus  exposed  themselves  to  be  severely  dealt  with  by  the 
Confederate  government ;  but  they  rendered  at  least  an  indirect 
service  to  their  cause  by  keeping  a  certain  number  of  rebel  troops 
far  away  from  the  fields  of  battle. 

The  military  events  which  occupied  the  end  of  the  year  1861 
in  Central  Kentucky  are  neither  more  important  nor  more  decis- 
ive than  those  we  have  just  related.  Anderson  had  been  replaced 
in  his  command  by  General  Sherman.  The  comprehensive  mind 
of  this  true  soldier  enabled  him  to  understand  at  a  glance  how 
greatly  above  the  resources  at  his  disposal  was  the  task  imposed 
upon  him,  and  he  refused  to  undertake  a  partisan  warfare  {petite 
guerre)  which  could  be  productive  of  no  results.  He  expressed 
his  convictions  with  his  usual  precision,  and  without  any  regard 
for  those  illusions  in  which  he  did  not  partici2:)ate.  General  L. 
Thomas  having  been  sent  by  the  Secretary  of  War  to  inspect  his 
troops,  he  told  that  officer  in  positive  terms  that  it  would  require 
sixty  thousand  men  to  subdue  Kentucky,  and  two  hundred  thou- 
sand to  conquer  the  Confederate  armies  between  the  Mississippi* 
and  the  Alleghanies.  Nobody  would  believe  him,  w^hile  many 
persons  pronounced  him  crazy ;  and  shortly  after,  he  was  deprived 
of  a  command  of  which  he  was  deemed  unworthy.  Before  long 
he  was  to  be  gloriously  avenged  for  this  temporary  injustice. 


394  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

The  troops  which  he  had  been  constantly  drilling  and  exercis- 
ing had  but  a  trifling  encounter  with  the  enemy.  Several  Fed- 
eral detachments  advanced  by  a  forced  march  as  far  as  the  borders 
of  Green  River,  below  Bowling  Green,  and  on  the  29th  of  October 
they  surprised  the  Confederate  posts  established  there.  One  of 
these  small  bodies  of  troops  entered  Morgantown,  almost  without 
striking  a  blow,  and  destroyed  the  enemy's  depots  ;  another,  cross- 
ing the  river  at  Woodbury,  put  the  garrison  to  flight  after  a  brisk 
engagement  fought  among  the  houses  of  that  village. 

In  the  mean  time,  McClellan  had  succeeded  Scott  in  the 
supreme  command.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  send  General 
Buell  on  the  4th  of  November  to  replace  Sherman  in  Kentucky. 
Buell,  who  had  previously  commanded  one  of  the  new  divisions 
of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  was  a  strict  and  methodical  officer, 
admirably  fitted  for  training  young  soldiers,  but  too  slow  to 
handle  them  successfully  in  an  active  campaign.  The  resources 
which  had  been  refused  to  Sherman  were  placed  at  his  disposal. 
The  number  of  regiments  which  the  Western  States  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois  furnished  the  Federal  government  increased 
every  day.  Most  of  these  troops  were  forwarded  to  Buell,  who 
soon  found  himself  at  the  head  of  a  considerable  army.  He 
resolved  at  last  to  take  the  offensive. 

The  Confederates,  on  their  side,  had  not  been  inactive.  Gen- 
eral Sidney  Johnston,  already  known  by  his  campaign  against  the 
Mormons,  had  embraced  their  cause.  He  was  invested  with  the 
supreme  command  over  all  the  country  extending  from  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  the  Alleghanies  ;  he  received  numerous  reinforcements 
from  the  West  under  Hardee,  from  Virginia  under  Floyd,  and 
lie  set  to  work  to  occupy  the  whole  southern  section  of  Ken- 
tucky. General  Hardee  proceeded  with  all  the  disposable  troops 
to  occupy  Bowling  Green,  which  had  become  a  vast  entrenched 
camp.  In  that  position  he  covered  ZollicoflFer  to  the  eastward, 
who  had  taken  position  in  the  valley  of  the  Cumberland,  and  to 
the  westward  Polk,  who  had  just  repulsed  Grant's  attack  upon 
Belmont.  Under  the  protection  of  this  army  the  secessionists  of 
Kentucky  organized  a  new  legislature,  which  was  this  time  sub- 
servient to  the  wishes  of  Governor  Magoffin,  and  voted  for  the 
annexation  of  their  State  to  the  Southern  Confederacv . 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  395 

Biiell  had  massed  at  Elizabethtown  an  army  of  forty  thousand 
men  under  the  immediate  command  of  General  McCook,  an 
officer  of  great  energy  and  brother  to  the  one  we  have  seen  serv- 
ino;  under  Rosecrans.  At  the  same  time,  he  sent  General  Mitchell 
to  make  a  threatening  demonstration  against  Zollicoffer  on  the 
borders  of  the  Cumberland.  McCook,  following  the  railway, 
proceeded  as  far  as  Munfordsville,  on  Green  River,  after  a  trifling 
engagement  with  the  outposts  of  the  Confederate  general  Hind- 
man,  on  the  4th  of  December,  at  Whippoorwill  Bridge.  The 
passage  of  the  river  delayed  him  for  some  time,  but  on  the  16th 
the  Union  general,  having  at  last  constructed  a  bridge  of  boats, 
sent  a  German  regiment  to  make  a  reconnaissance  on  the  left 
bank.  This  force  was  attacked  on  the  17th  by  a  party  of  mount- 
ed Texans,  who  rushed  upon  them  with  great  impetuosity.  The 
Federals  kept  their  ground.  They  came  to  close  fighting ;  and 
the  Texans  seemed  on  the  point  of  gaining  the  victory,  when  their 
commander.  Colonel  Terry,  was  killed.  Seeing  that  their  adver- 
saries were  receiving  reinforcements,  the  Texans  withdrew,  de- 
stroying the  railway  behind  them.  This  battle,  which  closed  the 
campaign,  cost  each  belligerent  about  thirty  men.  Buell  did  not 
deem  it  advisable  to  go  beyond  Green  River,  and  waited  along 
its  borders  fbr  a  more  favorable  season.  He  was  hesitating  as  to 
an  attack  on  Bowling  Green  ;  we  shall  find  that  Grant,  a  few  weeks 
later,  by  piercing  the  Confederate  line  along  the  Tennessee,  spared 
him  that  trouble. 

Before  closing  this  chapter  it  behooves  us  to  cast  a  glance 
along  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  where  the  two  principal  hostile 
armies  have  been  in  presence  of  each  other  since  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  we  have  shown  -svhat  efforts  the  North 
had  made  to  repair  that  disaster  by  raising  an  army  which  was 
already  formidable  in  point  of  numbers.  We  have  pointed  out 
the  modes  of  proceeding  resorted  to  in  all  the  loyal  States  to  raise 
regiments.  A  portion  of  these  troops  was  destined  to  swell  the 
armies  of  Missouri,  Kentucky,  and  Western  Virginia,  but  the 
necessity  of  covering  the  Federal  capital  concentrated  around 
Washington  the  greatest  portion  of  the  men  and  materiel  that  the 
patriotic  impulse  of  the  Northern  States  had  placed  at  Mr.  Lin- 


396  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

coin's  disposal.  General  McClellan  had  undertaken  to  organize 
and  shape  the  elements  thus  hastily  collected,  and  to  form  them 
into  an  army  capable  of  sustaining  unbroken  all  the  trials  of  an 
offensive  campaign.  No  man  in  America  was  better  able  to  ac- 
complish this  difficult  task  than  he.  His  first  care  was  to  ensure 
the  safety  of  Washington,  and  then  to  prepare  the  army  of  the 
Potomac  for  the  part  allotted  to  it  by  the  drilling  of  recruits, 
forming  regiments  into  divisions,  the  development  of  all  the 
special  services,  and  the  creation  of  a  sufficient  materiel.  From 
the  day  on  which  he  assumed  the  command,  immense  labors  were 
undertaken  in  order  to  convert  the  informal  redoubts  which  had 
been  erected  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac,  into  regular  works. 
These  labors  had  a  double  object.  It  was  important,  in  the  first 
place,  to  guard  effectually  against  any  sudden  attack  on  the  part 
of  the  Confederates,  who  might  be  able  either  to  surprise  one  of 
these  redoubts,  or  to  slip  between  them  under  cover  of  the  woods 
and  spread  confusion  in  the  capital  itself.  It  was  necessary,  above 
all,  to  inspire  with  confidence  the  remnants  of  McDowell's  army 
and  the  new  troops,  whose  imagination  had  been  excited  by  fanci- 
ful descriptions  of  the  battle  of  Bull  Kun.  The  sight  of  the  for- 
tifications which  rose  around  Washington  restored  the  equanim- 
ity which  they  so  much  needed  in  order  to  serve  their  apprentice- 
ship before  taking  the  field. 

Seated  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Potomac,  at  a  point  where  the 
river  is  transformed  into  a  broad  estuary,  the  capital  of  the  Union 
possesses  the  best  surroundings  for  a  vast  entrenched  camp.  Its 
long  avenues,  traced  in  a  straight  line  across  immense  spaces, 
which  have  been  cleared  to  no  purpose,  are  lined  by  a  few  houses; 
but  the  sandy  wastes  which  the  Capitol  in  its  majestic  isolation 
commands  offered  excellent  grounds  for  encampments,  depots,  and 
military  manoeuvres.  Elsewhere  nature  has  done  everything  to 
beautiiy  the  valley  of  the  Potomac.  The  river  is  skirted  by  two 
chains  of  hills,  one  to  the  north  of  Washington,  at  a  short  dis- 
tance from  the  city ;  the  other  on  the  right  bank,  sloping  gradu- 
ally as  it  nears  the  little  city  of  Alexandria.  This  range  is  com- 
posed of  a  succession  of  unconnected  hillocks,  covered  with  mag- 
nificent forests,  and  intersected  by  ravines,  in  which  never-failing 
waters  preserve  a  perpetual  freshness.     The  clay  so^  is  a  little 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  397 

hard  under  the  pick,  but  may  be  formed  into  embankments  which 
are  ahnost  indestructible,  and  the  abundance  of  wood  furnishes 
all  the  necessary  materials  for  the  rapid  construction  of  powerful 
entrenchments.  The  only  drawback  is  that  the  positions  sus- 
ceptible of  being  fortified  are  too  numerous,  and  the  space  com- 
manded by  each  is  too  restricted — circumstances  which  favor  a 
great  multiplication  of  defensive  works. 

During  the  months  of  August  and  September  General  McClel- 
lan  was  exclusively  occupied  with  the  construction  of  Avorks,  in- 
dispensable as  a  protection  for  his  young  troops,  in  case  the  enemy 
should  come  to  give  them  battle  in  sight  of  Washington.  It  was 
necessary,  on  one  hand,  to  protect  the  three  bridges  which  connect 
the  two  banks  of  the  Potomac  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington — the 
suspension  bridge  above  Georgetown,  the  canal  bridge,  situated  a 
little  lower  down,  and  the  Long  Bridge,  on  piles,  thrown  across 
the  estuary  of  the  Potomac  just  in  front  of  the  capital.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  expedient  to  cover,  more  to  the  south,  the 
little  city  of  Alexandria,  which  derived  great  importance  in  con- 
sequence of  its  wharves  built  in  deep  water,  and  as  the  terminus  of 
the  Orange  and  Manassas  Railway.  It  was  a  line  thirty  kilome- 
tres in  length  which  he  had  to  defend.  Earthworks,  some  open 
and  some  closed  at  the  gorge,  were  constructed  along  the  promi- 
nent points  of  that  line,  and  arranged  to  admit  the  field-pieces 
belonging  to  the  troops  encamped  in  the  neighborhood.  Vast 
abattis  extended  their  field  of  fire  and  increased  their  defensive 
strength ;  breastworks  for  infantry  were  thrown  up  in  the  posi- 
tions of  secondary  importance.  All  these  works  were  executed  by 
the  soldiers,who  showed  themselves  excellent  trenchers,  and  directed 
by  officers  who,  in  the  absence  of  special  instructions,  displayed 
considerable  knowledge  of  civil  engineering.  A  similar  line  of 
fortifications  extended  along  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac.  The 
capital,  thus  protected  on  all  sides,  could  defy  any  sudden  attacks, 
and  no  longer  feared  to  see  its  communications  with  Baltimore 
cut  by  hostile  parties.  At  the  end  of  one  month  these  works 
were  sufficiently  advanced  to  ensure  the  safety  of  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment. Three  months  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  they  were 
nearly  finished. 

During  this  time  General  McClellan  taxed  his  activity  and  his 


398  THE  CIVIL  JVAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

methodical  mind  in  organizing  the  army,  whose  strength  increased 
daily.  He  began  by  restoring  order  in  the  streets  o:&  Washington, 
where  were  a  disorderly  crowd  of  recruits  who  had  not  rejoined 
their  regiments,  soldiers  who  had  left  theirs,  and  wagons  of  every 
description,  which  indifferently  performed  the  service  of  supply- 
trains.  Almost  alone  at  the  beginning  to  superintend  everything, 
he  sought  everywhere  for  special  officers  capable  of  assisting  him ; 
his  zeal  was  imparted  to  all  his  subordinates,  and  a  fruitful  dili- 
gence succeeded  the  fruitless  agitation  which  had  prevailed  before 
his  comin-g. 

The  instruction  of  recruits  is  nearly  the  same  in  every  country. 
In  America  it  was  the  more  difficult  because  the  ignorance  of  the 
officers  equalled  that  of  the  soldiers.  The  new  regiments  on 
their  arrival  were  encamped  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  city, 
and  they  were  only  formed  into  brigades  after  a  certain  period  of 
preparation.  The  general-in-chief  took  care  to  assign  them,  as 
much  as  possible,  to  corps  where  the  new  comers  found  comrades 
already  better  instructed  than  themselves.  The  brigades,  consist- 
ing of  four  regiments  or  battalions  averaging  eight  hundred  men 
each,  were  about  three  thousand  two  hundred  strong.  They  were 
united,  by  threes,  to  form  divisions  of  ten  thousand  men,  to  each 
of  which  was  added  a  regiment  of  cavalry,  three  batteries  of  vol- 
unteer artillery,  and  one  from  the  regular  army.  All  the  branches 
of  the  administrative  service  were  reorganized,  and  so  constituted 
as  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  large  army  which  was  thus  being 
formed  of  all  three  parts.  The  materiel  which  reached  Washing- 
ton from  the  ports  and  manufacturing  cities  of  the  Union  was 
so  classified  as  to  simplify  matters  more  and  more.  Constant 
inspections  by  the  general  himself  and  his  aides-de-camp  ensured 
a  strict  performance  of  his  orders  and  hastened  the  completion 
of  the  work  he  had  imposed  upon  each  individual. 

Three  months  were  thus  spent.  The  active  operations  which 
took  place  during  that  period  were  so  trifling  that  a  few  words  will 
suffice  to  describe  them,  but  the  country  which  was  their  theatre 
plays  so  important  a  part  in  the  course  of  this  history,  that  it  is 
proper  to  give  once  for  all  a  description  of  it.  The  confluence 
of  the  Shenandoah  and  the  Potomac  at  Harper's  Ferry  doubles  the 
vol  u  lie  of  the  latter  river,  whose  deep  and  rapid  waters  form,  in  a. 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  399 

strategic  point  of  view,  a  considerable  obstacle.  Its  course  is  ob- 
structed by  various  falls,  but  a  canal  along  the  right  bank  affords 
facilities  to  navigation  which  the  river  itself  does  not  offer.  In 
approaching  Washington  the  Potomac  widens  and  feels  the  effects 
of  the  tide ;  it  is  transformed  into  a  long  and  deep  estuary,  to 
which  it  gives  its  name.  The  navigation  of  this  branch  of 
the  sea,  called  the  Lower  Potomac,  begins  at  Alexandria.  While 
the  river  pursues  a  south-eastwardly  course,  the  estuary  runs 
due  south  from  Washington  to  a  point  called  Aquia  Creek. 
Turning  abruptly  to  the  north-east  to  cover  the  lower  promontory 
called  Mathias  Point,  it  afterwards  resumes  the  original  south- 
eastwardly  direction,  and  finally  empties  into  the  inland  sea  called 
Chesapeake  Bay.  The  Potomac  crosses  the  chain  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  at  Harper's  Ferry,  which  on  the  Virginia  side  is  called 
Loudoun  Heights,  and  which  extends  into  Pennsylvania  under  the 
name  of  Maryland  Heiglits  and  South  Mountain.  A  little  more 
to  the  eastward  there  is  a  chain  of  hills  running  pai'allel  to  the 
Blue  Ridge,  but  much  less  elevated,  known  by  the  names  of  Bull 
Run  and  Catoctin  Mountains.  All  the  country  through  which 
the  Potomac  flows  beyond  the  gorges  formed  by  this  latter  chain 
resembles  the  neighborhood  of  Washington  ;  small  hills,  lying 
close  to  each  other,  of  equal  height,  separated  by  deep  and  often 
marshy  ravines,  unimportant  water-courses,  immense  woods  inter- 
sected by  clearings  where  corn  and  tobacco  are  cultivated,  valleys 
of  moderate  breadth  affording  rich  pasture-grounds,  very  few 
villages,  and  a  large  number  of  isolated  farms, — impart  to  this 
country  an  agreeable  but  monotonous  aspect.  Below  Washing- 
ton, the  tributaries  of  the  Lower  Potomac,  each  forming  a  small 
estuary  at  its  mouth,  separate  both  sides  of  the  river  from  this  arm 
of  the  sea.  The  Federal  capital,  situated  at  a  distance  of  eighty 
kilometres  in  a  direct  line  from  Harper's  Ferry  and  sixty-five 
from  Aquia  Creek,  thus  stands  at  the  summit  of  an  obtuse  angle, 
of  which  the  river  and  the  estuary  form  the  containing  sides. 
The  districts  situated  below  Aquia  Creek  are  so  intersected  with 
creeks  and  swamps  that  a  large  army  could  not  oj^erate  there, 
while  beyond  Mathias  Point  the  Lower  Potomac  increases  so 
much  in  width  that  its  navigation  cannot  be  intercepted. 

At   Manassas   the  Confederates   occupied   a   central    position, 


400  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

which  placed  them  about  fifteen  kilometres  nearer  to  Harper's 
Ferry  on  one  side,  and  to  Aquia  Creek  on  the  other,  than  the 
Federal  troops  quartered  at  Washington.  This  was  an  advantage 
both  in  an  offensive  and  defensive  point  of  view.  They  thought 
of  nothing,  however,  but  fortifying  themselves.  The  Richmond 
government,  which,  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  its  adherents,  an- 
nounced the  early  invasion  of  the  free  States,  was  well  aware  that 
the  army  of  Beauregard,  notwithstanding  the  reinforcements  it 
had  received,  was  not  in  a  condition  to  attempt  such  an  enter- 
prise. It  concealed  this  inability  under  the  pretext  of  strong 
political  reasons.  Not  being  able  to  assist  the  secessionists  of 
Maryland,  it  accused  them  of  lukewarmness.  While  the  pickets 
alone  were  pushed  forward  in  sight  of  Washington,  the  main 
body  of  the  Confederate  army  remained  at  Manassas,  where  it 
could  easily  obtain  supplies,  and  at  Centreville,  the  solitary  hil- 
lock of  which  had  been  encircled  by  earthworks  of  considerable 
strength. 

On  the  right  it  was  covered  by  the  Occoquan  River,  of  which 
Bull  Run  is  one  of  the  tributaries,  and  further  on  small  posts 
placed  en  echelon  along  the  Lower  Potomac  were  to  prevent  all 
attempts  at  landing.  At  Aquia  Creek  a  brigade  was  in  direct 
communication  with  Richmond  by  way  of  Fredericksburg.  Be- 
tween the  mouth  of  the  Occoquan  and  Alexandria,  on  a  hill  which 
overlooks  the  course  of  the  Potomac,  and  from  which  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol  may  be  seen,  stands  Mount  Vernon,  a  dwelling  at 
once  modest  and  famous,  where  Washington  lived  and  died.  By 
a  strange  coincidence,  the  residence  of  the  great  citizen  whose 
name  both  parties  were  invoking,  and  whose  memory  each  was 
anxious  to  appropriate,  was  situated  precisely  between  the  two 
lines  of  outposts,  as  if  he  had  hesitated  between  them,  or  was  still 
endeavoring  to  reconcile  them.  To  the  left,  the  Confederate 
scouts  showed  themselves  on  the  bank  of  the  Potomac,  from  the 
vicinity  of  the  suspension  bridge  to  the  defiles  of  the  Katocktin 
Mountains.  On  the  eastern  slope  of  these  hills,  at  a  distance  of 
ten  or  twelve  kilometres  from  the  Potomac,  they  occupied  the  lit- 
tle city  of  Leesburg,  situated  at  the  extremity  of  the  main  road, 
for  which  the  suspension  bridge  was  constructed.  Finally,  the 
troops  which  Johnston  had  left  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  rein- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  401 

forced  by  new  levies,  were  now  nnder  the  command  of  Jackson, 
who  had  just  given  proofs  of  his  military  abilities  at  Bull  llun. 
They  oc(!upied  Winchester,  and  pushed  their  outposts  as  far  as  the 
border  of  the  Potomac,  near  Martinsburg,  and  the  half-burnt  vil- 
lage of  Harper's  Ferry.  Great  activity  prevailed  both  at  Rich- 
mond and  at  Manassas. 

In  the  ca])ital  of  the  new  Confederacy,  Mr.  Davis  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  busy  in  organizing  all  the  parts  of  the  central  admin- 
istration for  the  conduct  of  the  war,  in  establishing  vast  manufac- 
tories, in  collecting  the  necessary  materiel  for  the  armies,  in  assem- 
bling and  drilling  recruits,  and  in  forwarding  to  Manassas  all 
they  had  available  in  men,  arms,  horses,  and  provisions.  Not- 
withstanding these  efforts,  they  could  not  increase  their  army  as 
rapidly  as  Mr.  Lincoln  could ;  but  they  succeeded  for  a  long  time 
in  concealing  this  growing  inferiority  from  their  adversaries — an 
unnecessary  trouble,  however,  for  the  latter  had  no  intention  of 
attaeking  them. 

The  fatal  impatience  of  the  North,  which  had  caused  the  disas- 
ter of  the  21st  of  July,  had  been  succeeded  by  a  settled  deter- 
mination to  submit  to  every  sacrifice  necessary  to  ensure  success. 
Men  were  not  only  sent  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  money  by 
hundreds  of  millions,  but  the  young  general  who  was  then  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  public  confidence  was  no  longer  begrudged 
the  expenditure  of  time — that  auxiliary,  the  value  of  which  the 
Americans  understand  so  well.  During  three  months  the  great 
nation  which  looked  to  him  for  safety  thought  of  nothing  but  to 
aid  him  in  his  efforts,  and  to  place  in  his  hands  the  most  powerful 
megms  of  action,  without  embarrassing,  by  a  single  criticism  or  a 
solitary  word  of  impatience,  the  work  of  organization  to  which  he 
had  entirely  devoted  himself.  Never,  perhaps,  was  a  citizen  of  a 
free  State  entrusted  with  such  a  complete  carte-blanche.  No  co- 
operation was  refused  him.  President  Lincoln  delighted  in  those 
days  in  going  to  talk  strategy  with  him.  His  superior  officer. 
General  Scott,  who  regarded  him  as  his  pupil,  thwarted  him  in 
nothing.  His  inferiors  unanimously  submitted  to  his  authority 
without  a  nuirmur,  while  McDowell  considered  it  an  honor  to 
serve  under  his  orders. 

The  strength  of  the  army  was  quintupled  without  extending 
Vol.  I.— 26 


402  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  circle  of  the  positions  it  occupied  around  "Wa'=?hington  more 
than  a  few  kilometres.  In  proportion  as  the  brigades  and  divis- 
ions were  formed,  they  were  posted  closely  upon  the  right  bank 
of  the  river,  and  all  the  hills  around  were  soon  covered  with  en- 
campments, picturesquely  laid  out  under  the  lofty  trees  of  the 
forest,  or  among  the  clearings.  Patterson  having  been  deprived 
of  his  command  in  consequence  of  his  inaction  in  July,  the 
defence  of  the  Upper  Potomac  was  entrusted  by  McClellaii 
to  General  Banks,  and  the  troops  remaining  in  that  district 
formed  a  division  under  his  orders.  AVell  aware  that  if  the  Con- 
federates debouched  from  the  valley  of  Virginia  into  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania,  they  could  not  advance  so  long  as  he  was  on 
their  flank,  McClellan  gave  up  the  idea  of  defending  the  Poto- 
mac above  the  point  of  its  confluence  with  the  Shenandoah.  He 
had,  therefore,  brought  back  Banks's  division  into  the  valley  of 
the  Monocacy,  a  tributary  of  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac, 
which  runs  along  the  eastern  slope  of  >he  Catoctin.  The  main 
body  of  that  division  occupied  the  central  point  of  Frederick,  and 
by  means  of  extended  posts,  watched  a  part  of  the  Potomac  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Harper's  Ferry  and  the  crest  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 
It  was  thus  able  to  defend  the  mountain  passes  against  any  en- 
emy who  should  venture  to  make  a  descent  upon  Baltimore  and 
Washington,  or  threaten  its  rear  if  it  advanced  towards  Pennsyl- 
vania. Shortly  afterwards.  Stone's  division,  lately  organized, 
made  a  connection  with  Banks  at  Washington,  by  taking  a  posi- 
tion at  Poolesville,  on  the  road  leading  from  the  capital  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Monocacy.  On  the  left,  to  watch  the  Lower  Poto- 
mac, a  division,  also  new,  was  sent  under  General  Hooker  to  take 
position  among  the  almost  impenetrable  forests  which  border  that 
arm  of  the  sea  on  the  Maryland  side.  This  division  was  en- 
camped on  some  high  hills,  from  which  it  could  see  the  bivouac 
fires  of  the  enemy,  from  which  it  was  separated  by  an  insurmount- 
able obstacle. 

The  two  armies,  thus  situated,  could  only  be  disturbed  in  their 
inaction  by  accidents  or  by  insignificant  encounters.  Banks's 
advanced  posts,  taking  advantage  of  low  water  in  the  month  of 
August,  frequently  crossed  the  Potomac  to  reconnoitre  the  Vir- 
ginia side  below  Harper's  Ferry.     They  exchanged  a  few  shots 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  403 

with  tlie  enemy  on  the  5tli  and  12th  of  August,  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  C'atoctin  River  and  the  village  of  Lovettsville,  and  each 
time  brought  back  a  few  prisoners.  One  month  later,  September 
11th,  one  of  the  new  brigades  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  com- 
manded by  General  Smith,  who  was  encamped  on  the  right  side 
of  the  river  near  the  suspension  bridge,  was  sent  to  make  a  re- 
connaissance in  the  direction  of  Lewinsville,  a  village  situated  be- 
tween the  two  hostile  lines  of  outposts.  The  object  of  this  move- 
ment was  to  teach  the  inexperienced  soldiers  of  General  Smith  to 
march  and  scout  in  presence  of  the  enemy,  to  make  topographical 
drawings  of  a  district  of  which  there  was  no  correct  map  in  ex- 
istence, and  to  prevent  the  enemy  from  obtaining  supplies  in  it. 
Having  been  informed  of  this  movement,  the  Confederate  gen- 
eral Stuart,  who  was  then  in  command  of  the  outposts  on  that 
side,  started  with  a  regiment  of  infantry,  a  detachment  of  cav- 
alry, and  a  battery  of  artillery,  for  the  purpose  of  surprising  the 
Federals,  whose  force  consisted  of  two  thousand  men  and  six 
guns.  He  deemed  it  more  prudent,  however,  to  attack  them  from 
a  distance,  and  the  fire  of  his  artillery  threw  at  first  some  con- 
fusion into  their  ranks.  But  the  Federal  guns  soon  obtained  the 
advantage,  and  without  coming  to  closer  quarters  both  parties 
retired,  each  on  his  own  side,  with  trifling  losses. 

Sometimes  it  was  the  Confederates  who  assumed  the  offensive ; 
as,  for  instance,  on  the  15th  of  September  a  detachment  of  their 
cavalry,  numbering  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  horses,  boldly 
crossed  the  Potomac  and  came  in  turn  to  attack  the  Federal  posts 
near  Darnestown,  between  Poolesville  and  Rockville ;  but  it  was 
repulsed,  and  left  about  a  dozen  wounded  behind. 

Two  months  had  elapsed  since  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  The 
Confederate  chiefs,  in  view  of  the  increase  of  the  Federal  forces 
at  Washington,  could  no  longer  entertain  the  idea  of  an  offensive 
campaign.  The  ardor  with  which  they  had  fired  the  South,  by 
pushing  their  outposts  in  sight  of  the  capital,  had  swelled  the 
number  of  their  soldiers ;  the  result  which  they  had  sought  was 
accomplished.  These  outposts,  having  ventured  very  far  from  the 
main  army,  were  then  drawn  back.  On  the  27th  of  September 
they  evacuated  a  small  work  situated  on  an  isolated  height  called 
Munson's  Hill,  which  soldiers  in  the  Union  army  were  in  the 


404  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

habit  of  pointing  out  from  a  distance  to  visitors  and  journalists, 
who  came  from  the  North  to  say  that  they  had  seen  the  enemy. 
The  Federals  entered  the  work  on  the  following  day,  and  after- 
wards successively  took  possession  of  the  villages  of  Lewiusville, 
Vienna,  and  even  Fairfax  Court-house,  on  the  9th,  16th,  and  17th 
of  October.  In  the  absence  of  more  important  military  events, 
this  movement,  which  had  not  cost  a  drop  of  blood,  was  made  the 
subject  of  comment  in  the  North,  both  by  the  press  and  the  pub- 
lic, for  several  weeks.  McClellan  contented  himself,  nevertheless, 
with  extending  his  positions,  and  laying  out  a  plan  for  a  new  line 
of  works  two  or  three  kilometres  in  advance  of  the  old  one.  He 
thus  left  a  space  between  the  two  armies  which  was  to  render  their 
encounters  still  rarer  than  before. 

The  inaction  which  fortified  his  position  above  and  around 
Washington  was  soon,  however,  the  means  of  causing  him  a 
great  deal  of  trouble  on  the  Lower  Potomac.  The  line  of  railway 
not  being  sufficient  to  transport  all  the  supplies  intended  for 
Washington,  part  of  that  service  was  performed  by  Avater.  From 
the  time  that  a  large  army  had  begun  to  collect  in  that  city  the 
Lower  Potomac  was  ploughed  by  a  considerable  number  of  sailing- 
vessels  coming  from  Baltimore,  Havre-de-Grace,  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  and  Boston,  carrying,  at  reduced  prices,  the  materiel 
of  war  and  the  necessary  provisions  for  the  military  and  civil 
population  of  the  capital.  The  Confederates,  being  masters  of  all 
the  right  bank,  resolved  to  balk  their  operations.  The  wooded 
hills  which  rise  along  the  borders  of  the  Lower  Potomac  aiforded 
excellent  positions  for  intercepting  the  navigation  of  that  arm  of 
the  sea.  They  erected  earthworks,  in  some  of  which  they  placed 
navy  guns,  whilst  others  were  prepared  to  receive  field-pieces. 
Towards  the  middle  of  September  they  began  by  firing  a  few 
shells  upon  the  vessels  that  were  coming  up  the  Potomac,  and  a 
fortnight  after,  their  batteries  were  so  well  posted  between  the 
mouth  of  the  Occoquan  and  Mathias  Point,  that  merchant- vessels 
dared  no  longer  to  brave  them,  and  navigation  was  almost  entirely 
suspended.  It  was  not  long  before  the  capital  began  to  suffer  for 
want  of  provisions ;  the  trains  engaged  in  the  transportation  ser- 
vice of  the  government  encumbered  the  railroad,  and  the  price  of 
all  commodities  was  immediately  raised.     The  material  damage 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  405 

was  not  great,  but  this  partial  blockade  of  the  capital  was  regarded 
in  the  North  as  a  new  humiliation,  and  for  the  first  time  General 
McClellan  was  taken  to  task.  These  reproaches  were  unjust.  It 
was  impossible  to  prevent  the  Confederates  from  erecting  bat- 
teries along  a  coast  eighty  kilometres  in  length,  of  which  they 
were  absolute  masters.  The  war  flotilla,  stationed  on  the  waters 
of  the  Potomac,  could  act  as  a  police  force,  intercept  all  communi- 
cations between  the  two  banks,  protect  merchant-vessels  against 
sudden  attacks,  throw  shells  into  one  and  another  of  the  enemy's 
works,  but  it  could  not  entirely  silence  batteries  the  armament 
of  which  it  was  always  easy  for  the  Confederates  to  renew.  In 
order  to  break  up  the  blockade  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
effect  the  military  occupation  of  the  right  bank  of  the  Lower  Po- 
tomac ;  but  such  an  operation  could  not  be  undertaken  with  an 
arm  of  the  sea  in  the  rear  and  the  whole  of  the  enemy's  army 
encamped  at  Manassas  in  front.  To  break  the  blockade  of  the 
Potomac,  therefore,  dependj^d  upon  the  retreat  of  that  army,  and 
could  only  be  an  incident  in  the  new  campaign  which  was  being 
prepared. 

Everything  seemed  to  indicate  to  the  Federals  that  the  moment 
for  undertaking  this  campaign  had  at  last  arrived.  We  have 
stated  that  by  the  end  of  September  the  Confederates  were  con- 
centrated around  Centre vi He  and  Manassas.  Their  outposts, 
wherever  they  had  been  maintained,  appeared  ready  to  fall  back, 
and  the  lukewarmness  they  exhibited  on  the  occasion  of  a  trifling 
engagement  at  Harper's  Ferry  encouraged  McClellan  to  draw  his 
lines  closer  upon  his  adversaries.  A  detachment  of  Geary's  bri- 
gade, which  guarded  the  Potomac  in  front  of  Harper's  Ferry,  had 
crossed  the  river  on  the  8th  of  October  a  little  above  that  village, 
and  taken  possession  of  a  few  mills  from  which  the  enemy  had 
procured  considerable  supplies.  The  Confederate  general  Eyans, 
who  was  at  Leesburg  with  his  brigade,  having  sent  a  few  troops 
to  worry  that  detachment,  Geary  crossed  the  Potomac  and  posted 
himself,  with  six  hundred  men  and  a  few  pieces  of  artillery,  at  Har- 
per's Ferry,  to  cover  the  retreat  of  the  soldiers  who  were  carrying 
back  the  flour  taken  from  the  mill.  On  the  16th  he  was  prepar- 
ing to  recross  the  river,  when  the  Confederates  attacked  him.  At 
a  distance  of  four  kilometres  from  Harper's  Ferry  his  outposts 


406  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

were  stationed  along  a  ridge  called  Bolivar  Heights,  which  com- 
mands the  approaches  to  that  village,  and  extends  from  the  Potomac 
to  the  Shenandoah.  The  Confederates  took  possession  of  it  with- 
out any  difficulty,  and  began  to  cannonade  the  Federals  posted  on 
a  plateau  extending  from  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  a  point  above 
Harper's  Ferry,  while  one  of  their  batteries,  placed  on  Loudoun 
Heights,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Shenandoah,  took  them  in  flank. 
Geary's  soldiers  made  a  brave  resistance.  At  last  the  detach- 
ment which  had  left  the  mill  in  the  morning,  and  recrossed  the 
Potomac,  came  to  their  assistance,  and,  following  the  line  of  the 
Shenandoah,  turned  the  extreme  right  of  the  Confederates.  Geary, 
who  until  then  had  contented  himself  with  repulsing  the  charges 
of  Ashby's  cavalry,  took  the  offensive  in  turn,  and  ascending  the 
hill  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  drove  him  back  in  disorder  to 
the  other  side.  The  Confederates  were  not  able  to  rally,  and 
they  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Federals  a  few  prisoners,  a  large 
amount  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  a  gun  of  heavy  calibre. 
Geary,  satisfied  with  a  success  which  had  only  cost  him  about  a 
dozen  men,  returned  to  the  left  bank  of  the  river  in  the  evening. 
It  was  now  the  middle  of  October ;  the  oppressive  heat  of  sum- 
mer had  been  succeeded  by  those  lovely  autumnal  days  in  which 
a  peculiar  haze  like  a  thin  smoke  marks  the  early  hours — days 
calm  and  balmy,  followed  by  nights  marvellously  bright  and  clear. 
At  that  season,  known  by  the  name  of  Indian  summer,  the  dryness 
renders  the  worst  roads  passable,  and  reduces  the  streams  to  their 
smallest  volume.  Three  months  of  labor  had  brought  forth  their 
fruits;  a  line  of  fortifications,  all  capable  of  sustaining  a  siege 
and  connected  by  great  military  roads,  surrounded  Washington, 
affording  an  efficient  protection  to  the  capital.  The  forts  on  the 
right  side  of  the  river  were  nearly  all  armed,  and  their  garrisons 
had  been  designated.  General  McClellan  had  at  last  seven  strong 
divisions  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac  and  four  on  the  left. 
The  former,  commanded  respectively  by  Generals  McCall,  Smith, 
Fitz  John  Porter,  McDowell,  Blenker,  Franklin,  and  Heintzel- 
mann,  were  encamped,  in  the  order  in  which  we  have  enumerated 
them,  along  the  line  of  defence  from  the  suspension  bridge  to 
Alexandria.  The  others,  under  Generals  Banks,  Stone,  Keyes, 
and  Hooker,  were  stationed  en  echelon  in  the  valley  of  the  Monoc- 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  407 

acy  at  Poolesville,  near  Georgetown,  and  along  the  Lower  Poto- 
mac. The  regular  infantry,  several  regiments  not  formed  into 
brigades  and  several  brigades  not  formed  into  divisions,  occupied 
Washington.  On  the  15th  of  October,  these  troops,  including 
the  garrisons  of  Baltimore  and  Annapolis,  presented  a  total  force 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  thousand  fifty-four  men,  of  whom, 
after  deducting  nine  thousand  sick,  one  thousand  unfit  for  service, 
and  eight  thousand  absentees,  there  remained  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three  thousand  two  hundred  and  one,  ready  for  active  ser- 
vice, together  with  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  field-pieces. 
General  McClellan  deemed  it  expedient  to  leave  thirty-five  thou- 
sand men  and  forty  cannon  in  AVashington,  ten  thousand  men  and 
twelve  cannon  in  Baltimore  and  Annapolis,  five  thousand  men  and 
twelve  cannon  on  the  Upper  Potomac,  and  eight  thousand  men 
with  twenty-four  cannon  on  the  Lower  Potomac.  He  found 
himself,  therefore,  at  the  head  of  a  perfectly  available  force  of 
seventy-five  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and  forty  guns. 
These  troops  were  thoroughly  equipped,  well  armed,  and  provided 
with  sufficient  means  of  transportation.  There  was  doubtless 
something  in  their  bearing  which  struck  the  practiced  eye  unfavor- 
ably ;  doubtless  also  they  did  not  present  that  compactness  and 
precision  of  movement  which  long  practice  in  manceuvring  can 
alone  impart  to  an  army,  but  it  seemed  as  if  henceforth  they  only 
required  some  practical  experience  in  warfare  to  improve  greatly. 
The  people  of  the  North  were  waiting  w'ith  great  anxiety,  and  a 
degree  of  impatience  difficult  to  control,  for  the  first  movement 
of  that  army  to  which  such  vast  interests  had  been  entrusted. 

Unfortunately,  General  McClellan,  besides  the  very  natural 
anxiety  he  felt  on  account  of  the  inexperience  of  his  troops,  sin- 
gularly overrated  the  strength  and  discipline  of  those  of  John- 
ston, who  had  superseded  Beauregard  in  the  command  of  the 
Confederate  army — the  army  of  Northern  Virginia.  He  had 
given  to  that  army  a  total  force  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand men,  whereas,  in  reality,  on  the  31st  of  October  it  only 
numbered  sixty -six  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-three  men  in 
all,  of  whom  only  forty-four  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  were  present  in  the  field.  One-third  of  this  army  was  com- 
posed of  non-combatants,  sick  men  disabled  by  change  of  climate. 


408  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and  especially  absentees  without  leave.  The  number  of  these 
last  mentioned  was  sufficient  to  show  that  the  Federal  general 
was  equally  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  discipline  of  his  adver- 
saries, Avho,  while  full  of  ardor  on  the  battle-field,  submitted  with 
great  reluctance  to  the  regular  life  and  monotonous  duties  of  the 
camp.  Nevertheless,  the  movement  in  retreat  indicated  by  the 
enemy  decided  him  to  feel  the  ground  upon  which  he  was  prob- 
ably about  to  undertake  a  fall  campaign. 

■  On  the  19th  of  October  he  placed  the  three  divisions  forming 
his  rio-lit  wins:  on  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac  under  arms,  and 
made  them  reconnoitre  the  whole  line  in  front  of  them.  Only 
some  cavalry  pickets  were  found,  and  it  was  ascertained  that  the 
enemy  was  nowhere  in  force  in  front  of  Centreville.  McCall, 
v/ho  was  at  the  extreme  right,  advanced  along  the  road  parallel 
to  the  river ;  and  placing  two  of  his  brigades  en  echelon,  in  order 
to  cover  his  communications,  he  passed  through  the  village  of 
Drainesville  with  the  third,  proceeding  as  far  as  within  fifteen 
miles  of  Leesburg,  while  his  staff  officers  were  engaged  in  making 
a  sketch  of  the  country.  McClellan  justly  thought  that  he  had 
gone  too  far,  and  fearing  lest  he  should  expose  his  flank  to  an 
attack  on  the  part  of  the  Confederates  posted  at  Centreville,  or- 
dered him  to  fall  back  as  far  as  Drainesville.  But  struck  with 
the  absence  of  the  enemy  in  that  direction,  and  deceived  by  a 
false  report  from  Banks,  he  concluded  that  the  Confederates  had 
n>o  intention  of  defending  Leesburg.  He  wished  to  assure  him- 
self of  the  fact,  without,  however,  bringing  on  a  battle  for  the  pos- 
session of  that  eccentric  point,  or  placing  McCall's  column  in  a 
dangerous  position  between  the  enemy  and  a  deep  river.  With 
this  object  in  view,  on  the  evening  of  the  19th  he  ordered  Stone, 
who  was  guarding  the  Potomac  in  front  of  Leesburg,  to  watch 
the  movements  of  the  Confederates  on  the  opposite  bank,  and,  if 
necessary,  to  accelerate  their  retreat  by  a  slight  demonstration. 
In  the  same  despatch  he  informed  him  that  McCall  had  gone  be- 
yond Drainesville  without  seeing  the  enemy,  and  that  strong 
reconnaissances  would  be  made  all  along  the  line. 

Stone's  skirmishers  occupied  a  long  island  on  the  Potomac 
ealled  Harrison's  Island,  situated  as  far  up  as  Lee-^burg.  This 
island  lies  under  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  which  rises  and 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  409 

forms  the  cliffs  of  Ball's  Bluff,  the  precipitous  acclivities  of  which 
are  nearly  twenty  metres  high.  At  the  upper  extremity  of  the 
island  there  is  a  crossing  called  Conrad's  Ferry,  and  a  few  kilo- 
metres below  the  lower  extremity,  fronting  the  mouth  of  Goose 
Creek,  the  crossing  called  Edward's  Ferry.  Conformably  to  the 
instructions  he  had  received,  Stone  made  some  feints  to  induce  the 
enemy  to  show  his  strength.  Six  regiments,  under  General  Gor- 
man, were  sent  to  Edward's  Ferry,  and  the  greatest  portion  of  a 
brigade,  temporarily  commanded  by  Colonel  Baker,  was  colled  ed 
at  Conrad's  Ferry.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  20th  Gorman  made  a 
show  of  embarking,  and  in  the  evening  he  sent  a  few  mounted 
men  across  the  river,  while  a  party  of  skirmishers,  crossing  the 
stream  in  front  of  Harrison's  Island,  climbed  up  the  acclivities  of 
Ball's  Bluff.  The  latter  proceeded  as  far  as  the  outskirts  of  Lees- 
burg  without  finding  any  trace  of  the  enemy ;  but,  deceived  by  the 
reflection  of  moonlight  upon  an  orchard,  they  mistook  the  sur- 
rounding objects  for  an  encampment,  and  reported  back  that  the 
imaginary  enemy  was  very  carelessly  guarded. 

This  report,  trifling  in  itself,  was  the  origin  of  a  succession  of 
blunders,  which  were  eventually  the  cause  of  a  serious  disaster  to 
the  Federals.  Stone,  convinced  that  the  enemy  was  not  in  force 
at  Leesburg,  thought  he  might  make  a  demonstration  in  that  direc- 
tion corresponding  with  those  which  McClellan  had  mentioned  in 
his  despatch,  and  thus  take  possession  of  that  town  without  in- 
volving himself  in  a  serious  engagement.  He  ordered  Colonel 
Devens,  who  occupied  Harrison's  Island  with  the  Fifteenth  Mas- 
sachusetts, to  cross  the  river  above  Ball's  Bluff,  to  proceed  as  far 
as  Leesburg  and  surprise  the  enemy's  camp,  while  the  Twentieth 
of  the  same  State,  under  Colonel  Lee,  should  take  its  ]ilace  on  the 
island,  and  he  authorized  Baker  either  to  support  Devens  with 
the  rest  of  his  brigade  or  to  recall  him,  abandoning  Ball's  Bluff, 
according  to  circumstances.  At  the  same  time,  a  few  companies 
of  the  Gorman  brigade  crossed  the  Potomac  at  Edward's  Ferry  to 
make  a  similar  reconnaissance  on  the  banks  of  Goose  Creek. 
Stone  thereby  transcended  the  instructions  of  McClellan.  His 
imprudence  was  aggravated  by  the  evident  insufficiency  of  his 
means  for  crossing  the  river.  The  waters,  whi(;h  had  risen  very 
high  during  the  last  week,  rendered  that  operation  extremely  dif- 


410  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ficult.  In  order  to  cross  the  two  arms  of  the  Potomac  at  Har- 
rison's Island  the  Federals  had  only  one  flat-boat,  capable  of  car- 
rying about  forty  men,  two  barges,  each  of  which  would  hold 
about  thirty,  and  a  small  iron  launch.  Nor  were  they  better  pro- 
vided at  Edward's  Ferry,  whither  Stone  had  repaired  in  person, 
leaving  the  entire  control  of  the  movements  at  Conrad's  Ferry  to 
Baker. 

Devens,  having  crossed  the  Potomac  with  a  portion  of  his  regi- 
ment during  the  night,  advanced,  early  in  the  morning  of  Octo- 
ber 21st,  upon  Leesburg,  at  the  head  of  four  or  five  hundred 
men,  and  reached  the  point  which  had  been  reconnoitred  on  the 
previous  day  without  meeting  a  single  adversary.  He  had,  how- 
ever, before  him  a  powerful  and  vigilant  enemy,  who  was  watch- 
ing his  every  step,  and  who  was  preparing  to  punish  him  for  his 
rashness.  Evans,  who  had  already  given  evidence  of  his  mili- 
tary skill  at  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  had  been  on  his  guard  since 
the  occupation  of  Drainesville  by  McCall.  Having  transferred 
all  his  materiel  into  the  woods,  he  had  concealed  himself,  with  his 
three  thousand  men,  in  the  village  of  Leesburg ;  and  when  at  last 
Devens  approached,  he  sallied  out  to  meet  him.  But  being  ignor- 
ant of  the  strength  of  the  Federals,  he  attacked  them  very  cau- 
tiously, and  after  a  brief  engagement  allowed  them  to  fall  back 
upon  Ball's  Bluff  without  harassing  them.  The  reconnaissance 
was  finished  even  before  the  skirmish  had  revealed  the  presence 
of  the  enemy,  and  all  the  Federal  detachments  should  immedi- 
ately after  have  been  brought  back  from  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  But  at  that  moment  General  Stone,  who  had  just  wit- 
nessed the  passage  of  a  portion  of  Gorman's  brigade  at  Edward's 
Ferry,  full  of  confidence  in  the  success  of  his  manoeuvre,  sent  the 
Twentieth  Massachusetts  to  Ball's  Bluff,  together  with  the  de- 
tachment of  the  Fifteenth  which  had  remained  at  Harrison's 
Island.  At  the  same  time  he  gave  the  fatal  order  to  Devens  to 
wait  on  the  right  side  of  the  river  for  these  reinforcements.  It 
was  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Evans,  not  supposing  that  the 
Federals  could  have  committed  the  imprudence  of  throwing  a  few 
hundred  men  on  the  Virginia  shore  without  the  means  of  rein- 
forcing them  or  of  promptly  withdrawing  them,  was  advancing 
cautiously.     In  the  mean  time,  Colonel  Baker  had  arrived  with 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  411 

his  regiment  at  Conrad's  Ferry,  and  had  assumed  the  command 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  instructions  of  Stone.  A  senator  from 
Oregon  and  a  personal  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  an  orator  of  talent 
and  respected  by  all  for  his  nobility  of  character,  Baker  was  an 
officer  as  brave  as  he  was  inexperienced.  Learning  that  Devens 
had  exchanged  a  few  shots  with  the  enemy,  his  only  thought  was 
to  renew  the  fight  and  to  mass  as  many  men  as  possible  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  river,  without  troubling  himself  about  the 
means  of  retreat  in  case  of  a  reverse. 

On  the  top  of  the  cliif  of  Ball's  Bluff  there  is  a  clearing  a  little 
less  than  a  kilometre  in  length,  following  the  course  of  the  river, 
and  from  four  to  five  hundred  metres  in  width.  It  is  surrounded 
on  three  sides  by  thick  .woods ;  the  fourth,  overlooking  the  Poto- 
mac, is  formed  by  the  crest  of  the  steep  acclivity  which  slopes 
down  to  the  shore.  Nothing  intervenes  between  the  foot  of  this 
acclivity,  which  is  thickly  covered  with  copse-wood,  and  the 
rapid  waters  of  the  stream  below,  but  a  kind  of  banquette  t^-enty 
metres  wide.  It  M^as  impossible  to  select  a  worse  place  for  land- 
ing. The  troops,  having  reached  the  clearing  after  a  perilous 
ascent,  found  themselves  without  protection  and  surrounded  by 
M'oods  which  concealed  the  ajiproach  of  the  enemy.  The  precipi- 
tous character  of  the  acclivity  did  not  admit  of  falling  back  in 
good  order  as  far  as  the  river,  while  the  impossibility  of  effecting 
a  rapid  embarkation  would  doom  those  detained  on  its  banks  to 
certain  disaster. 

To  establish  himself  without  danger  in  that  position,  Baker 
should  at  least  have  possessed  a  sufficient  number  of  boats  and 
been  able  to  convey  with  rapidity  all  his  forces  from  one  side  of 
the  river  to  the  other.  But  as  we  have  stated,  he  had  only  three 
boats  at  his  disposal  for  this  important  service.  Stone,  in  allow- 
ing him  entire  freedom  of  action,  had  not  troubled  himself  about 
the  matter,  and  had  even  aggravated  that  fault  by  his  inconsider- 
ate zeal.  The  crossing  of  three  guns,  which  he  sent  to  Ball's 
Bluff,  with  their  horses,  also  occasioned  much  loss  of  time,  and 
diminished  by  several  hundreds  the  number  of  combatants  wham 
he  might  have  massed  in  season  on  the  right  side  of  the  river. 

In  the  mean  while,  Evans,  who  had  been  advancing  with  great 
caution,  at  last  reached  the  line  occujjied  by  Devens's  five  com- 


412  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

panics  in  advance  of  the  clearing  at  Ball's  Bluif  about  two  o'clock. 
His  brigade,  numbering  about  three  thousand  two  hundred  men, 
consisted  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  and  the  Thirteenth,  Seven- 
teenth, and  Eighteenth  Mississippi.  This  last  regiment  was  di- 
rected upon  the  extreme  right  in  order  to  attack  the  Federals  in 
flank.  The  first  two  regiments  charged  Devens  and  drove  his 
little  band  back  upon  the  rest  of  the  T'ederals,  who  were  posted  in 
the  clearino;.  At  the  sound  of  cannon  Baker  crossed  the  river 
without  leaving  any  officer  to  superintend  the  embarkation  of  his 
soldiers,  which  was,  therefore,  eifected  amid  the  greatest  confu- 
sion. At  Ball's  Bluff  he  found  about  one  thousand  nine  hundred 
men  crowded  in  a  narrow  space,  without  any  means  of  deploying, 
and  forming  an  irregular  line,  having  Ijehind  it  almost  every- 
where the  abrupt  edge  of  the  cliff.  The  combat  was  vigorously 
engaged  along  the  centre  and  right  of  his  troops  when  he  ar- 
rived, about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  Confederates 
were  superior  in  numbers,  full  of  ardor,  well  handled,  and  pro- 
tected by  the  woods,  which  concealed  their  movements  and  kept 
their  reserves  out  of  sight.  The  Federals,  however,  made  at  first 
a  good  resistance,  and  their  artillery,  which  was  well  served,  in- 
flicted some  losses  upon  the  assailants.  But  these  inexperienced 
soldiers,  who  had  never  been  under  fire  with  their  officers,  began 
to  feel  disconcerted  on  beholding  the  ravages  caused  in  their 
ranks  by  the  fire  of  the  Confederates.  Most  of  the  cannoneers 
had  been  wounded,  and  the  guns  were  silent  for  want  of  men  to 
serve  them.  A  few  officers  made  an  effort  to  manoeuvre  them. 
Baker  himself,  who  sought  the  post  of  danger,  and  who,  not 
knowing  how  to  command,  could  at  least  risk  his  person  fear- 
lessly, joined  them  in  the  attempt;  but  it  soon  became  necessary 
to  drag  the  guns  by  hand  back  to  the  edge  of  the  acclivity.  After 
an  hour's  fight,  disorder  began  to  show  itself  among  the  Federals. 
The  many  wounded  were  joined  by  a  still  larger  number  of  fugi- 
tives, who  accompanied  them  to  the  river,  and  tried  to  get  on 
board  the  boats  which  were  to  convey  them  back  to  the  island. 
The  officers,  who  had  been  obliged  to  expose  themselves  rashly  in 
order  to  set  an  example  to  their  soldiers,  fell  in  great  numbers. 
Baker  was  killed  almost  at  the  cannon's  mouth  (d,  bout  portanf) 
just  as  he  was  endeavoring  to  hold  a  portion  of  his  line  which 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  413 

was  jn  the  point  of  breaking.  On  the  Confederate  right  the 
Eighteenth  Mississippi  had  commenced  the  action,  and  threat- 
ened the  left  flank  of  the  Federals.  The  latter  had  found  some 
shelter  in  a  narrow  edge  of  wood,  which,  skirting  the  forest  to  the 
southward,  prolonged  it  for  a  distance  of  about  one  hundred 
metres ;  the  open  space  between  them  also  separated  the  combatants. 
Baker  was  killed  at  four  o'clock ;  the  Federals  were  evidently 
beaten.  Colonel  Cogswell,  upon  whom  the  command  devolved, 
tried  to  extricate  them  by  falling  back  with  his  left  upon  Ed- 
ward's Ferry  along  the  river,  where  he  would  have  found  reinforce- 
ments. But  just  as  he  was  stripping  his  right  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  this  movement  the  soldiers  who  occupied  the  piece  of 
wood  on  the  left  imprudently  came  out ;  a  well-sustained  fire 
threw  them  into  confusion,  and  the  Confederates  took'  advantage 
of  their  disorderly  condition  to  seize  the  position  they  vacated. 
All  retreat  was  noAV  cut  off  on  that  side.  Only  a  handful  of 
men  continued  to  offer  any  resistance  at  the  top  of  the  acclivity, 
which  their  comrades  were  descending  in  great  haste.  A  final 
charge  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  drove  them,  in  turn,  into  that 
abyss,  where  further  struggle  was  impossible.  One  of  the  cannon, 
which  was  flung  from  the  summit  of  the  cliff,  rolled  down  to  the 
water's  edge  and  was  broken  in  pieces.  The  battle  was  ended. 
The  Confederates  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  complete  their  vic- 
tory by  firing  upon  opponents  who  were  no  longer  able  to  retaliate. 
The  crowd  of  fugitives  clung  to  the  brushwood  which  covered  the 
acclivities  of  Ball's  Bluff,  and,  finding  no  shelter,  sought  their  last 
chance  of  safety  in  the  only  boat  which  remained  moored  to  the 
shore.  The  other  two,  which  were  filled  with  wounded  men,  were 
already  far  off,  and  being  overloaded,  as  is  always  the  case  under 
such  circumstances,  soon  sank  with  all  those  who  were  congratu- 
lating themselves  upon  having  been  able  to  get  on  board.  A 
large  number  of  officers  and  soldiers  threw  themselves  into  the 
river  to  cross  by  swimming.  Most  of  these  were  drowned,  and  a 
few  were  killed  by  the  balls  of  the  enemy,  who  pursued  them 
without  mercy.  Some,  however,  succeeded  in  reaching  Harrison's 
Island  and  even  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac ;  among  the  latter 
was  Colonel  Devens.  At  last  darkness  came  to  put  an  end  to 
that  "ecene  of  horror ;   it  enabled  some  of  the  fugitives  to  hide 


414  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

near  the  shore  or  to  slip  into  the  woods  out  of  reach  of  the  vic- 
tors. The  disaster  was  complete;  out  of  one  thousand  nine 
hundred  Federals  who  had  landed  at  Ball's  Bluff,  scarcely  eight 
hlindred  recrossed  the  Potomac ;  they  left  behind  them  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-three  dead,  two  hundred  and  fifty  wounded,  more 
than  five  hundred  prisoners,  and  their  three  guns.  Their  com- 
mander and  most  of  the  officers  were  either  killed  or  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy. 

The  Confederates,  proud  of  their  success,  but  astonished  at  its 
importance,  encamped  on  the  heights  they  had  so  bravely  won ; 
their  loss  amounted  to  about  three  hundred  men,  one  hundred 
and  fifty-three  of  whom  were  killed ;  among  the  latter  was  the 
colonel  of  the  Eighteenth  Mississippi.  In  the  mean  while,  great 
confusion  prevailed  among  the  Federals,  who  expected  to  be 
attacked  at  Harrison's  Island  and  at  Edward's  Ferry.  Part  of 
the  Gorman  brigade  occupied  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac  at  the 
last-mentioned  point ;  on  being  apprised  of  Baker's  defeat,  Stone 
made  preparations  for  bringing  his  troops  back  to  the  left  bank. 
But  in  the  middle  of  the  night  the  movement  was  countermanded 
by  McClellan,  and  the  whole  brigade  crossed  into  Virginia.  To- 
wards four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  22d,  this  brigade,  num- 
bering about  four  thousand  men,  was  attacked  by  a  portion  of 
Evans's  forces.  The  latter  had  proceeded  as  far  as  Goose  Creek, 
in  the  hope  of  meeting  with  some  isolated  detachments  which 
he  could  still  crush ;  but  having  discovered  that  he  had  to  deal 
with  an  adversary  superior  in  numbers,  he  lost  no  time  in  retir- 
ing. On  the  23d  McClellan  went  to  visit  Stone's  troops,  which 
had  been  so  cruelly  tried,  and  gave  them  the  encouragement  of 
which  they  stood  in  need.  But  being  convinced  that  he  could 
not  undertake  any  serious  operation  in  that  part  of  his  line,  he 
brought  back  into  Maryland  all  the  troops  which  still  occupied 
the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac. 

The  simple  narrative  of  the  Ball's  Bluff  disaster  has  demon- 
strated its  causes — the  point  selected  for  the  landing  of  troops, 
the  imprudence  which  ventured  two  thousand  men  beyond  a  river 
without  any  possible  means  of  retreat,  the  tardiness  which  enabled 
the  enemy  to  reconnoitre  its  movements  and  to  strike  a  vigorous 
blow.     The  discussion  of  these  causes  gave  rise  to  bitter  and  end- 


BALL'S  BLUFJ^.  415 

less  reciiminations ;  indeed,  everybody  concerned  was  deserving 
of  blame.  In  his  instructions  McClellan  had  allowed  too  great 
a  latitude  to  Stone,  by  directing  him  to  keep  a  watch  over  Lees- 
burg,  which  could  not  have  been  done  without  crossing  the  Poto- 
mac ;  he  should  perhaps  have  more  thoroughly  impressed  on  his 
mind  the  isolation  in  which  any  troops  sent  to  operate  on  the 
right  borders  of  the  river  would  find  themselves.  The  errors 
committed  by  Stone  were  more  serious ;  putting  too  much  faith 
m  the  reports  of  his  scouts,  he  persuaded  himself  that  a  demon- 
stration would  be  sufficient  to  cause  the  evacuation  of  Leesburg, 
and  he  combined  all  the  movements  of  his  troops  as  if  he  were 
sure  of  being  able  to  occupy  that  town.  After  having  given 
Baker  the  option  of  either  withdrawing  his  detachments  from 
Ball's  BluiF  or  of  following  them  with  the  rest  of  his  brigade, 
he  formally  approved  his  action  in  adopting  the  latter  course. 
On  being  informed  that  there  were  nearly  four  thousand  Con- 
federates between  Leesburg  and  the  two  thousand  men  of  Baker, 
he  gave  himself  no  uneasiness  on  account  of  the  latter,  but 
merely  pointed  out  to  them  the  means  of  pursuing  the  enemy, 
instead  of  guarding  against  his  attack,  as  he  should  have  done. 
The  despatch  of  Stone  in  which  he  approved  of  the  crossing  of 
the  river  only  became  known  some  time  after  Baker's  death, 
and  by  a  chance  which  was  truly  providential.  That  unfortunate 
officer  had  placed  the  despatch  inside  of  his  cap;  one  of  his 
officers,  who  picked  up  Baker's  body,  found  the  despatch  ;  it  was 
stained  with  blood,  Baker  having  been  shot  in  the  head.  He 
made  a  copy  of  the  despatch,  which  he  sent  to  Baker's  family, 
before  transmitting  the  original  to  the  War  Department,  where  it 
was  buried  in  oblivion.  The  publication  of  the  copy  of  the  des- 
patch so  fortunately  recovered  for  Baker's  memory  put  a  stop  to 
most  of  the  severe  criticisms  which  had  been  the  more  readily  made 
against  him  because  he  was  not  able  to  reply  to  them  ;  it  could  not, 
however,  entirely  exonerate  him.  Indeed,  he  executed,  without 
having  received  formal  instructions',  an  operation  contrary  to  all  the 
principles  of  war,  the  dangers  attending  which,  had  he  been  more 
experienced,  he  ought  to  have  been  better  able  to  appreciate  than 
any  one  else ;  anxious  to  distinguish  himself  in  behalf  of  a  cause  he 
had  espoused  with  the  zeal  of  a  martyr,  he  atoned  by  a  glorious 


416  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

deatli  for  the  error  he  had  committed,  but  he  could  not  repair 
it.  There  are  few  men  capable  of  such  devotion  ;  and  one  who 
blames  them  for  a  technical  error  must  at  the  same  time  pay  due 
homao-e  to  their  valor.  Baker's  subordinates  were  also  them- 
selves  to  blame  for  not  having  made  a  more  thorough  reconnais- 
sance, and  for  having  allowed  the  enemy  to  come  upon  them 
without  even  suspecting  his  approach;  they  thus  lost  the  last 
chance  of  recrossing  the  river  in  good  order. 

We  have  dwelt  upon  the  causes  which  brought  on  the  defeat  of 
the  Federals  because  the  eifect  of  that  disaster  was  deeply  felt 
among  them.  The  soldiers  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  under- 
stood that  their  comrades  had  been  the  victims  of  misunderstand- 
ings among  their  commanders ;  the  latter  no  longer  possessed  that 
entire  confidence  in  their  management  of  the  army  which  is  every- 
where the  first  element  of  success ;  and  General  McClellan,  for 
his  part,  caught  the  first  glimpse  of  many  difficulties  which  he  had 
not  suspected  before.  It  was  the  first  time  that  he  had  put  his 
hand  to  the  tiller,  and  the  cumbrous  vessel  had  not  obeyed  the 
helm  as  the  pilot  had  expected. 

Congress  itself  was  affected  by  the  rout  of  Ball's  Bluff.  A 
committee  formed  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the  military  op- 
erations, and  of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak  hereafter,  made  it 
the  subject  of  a  long  investigation,  which  resulted  in  the  sacrifice 
of  General  Stone  to  appease  the  dissatisfied  public.  This  officer, 
who  had  shown  great  determination  of  purjjose  during  the  early 
stages  of  the  rebellion,  when  he  found  himself  alone  in  "Wash- 
ington with  his  company  of  regulars,  was  accused  of  being  in 
communication  with  the  enemy.  His  tolerance,  perhaps  exag- 
gerated, for  the  rebel  inhabitants  of  Maryland,  was  charged 
against  him  before  the  committee,  and  on  a  certain  day  he  was 
arrested  by  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  secretly  confined 
in  Fort  Lafayette.  He  was  kept  there  like  a  forgotten  man  for 
six  months ;  the  committee  pretended  to  be  ignorant  of  his 
arrest,  which  was  not  justified  by  any  conclusive  evidence ;  no 
written  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War  concerning  him  has  been 
discovered ;  and  General  McClellan,  being  absorbed  by  other 
cares,  or  thinking  probably  that  this  subordinate,  against  whom 
he  had  himself  signed  the  order  of  arrest,  deserved  such  severe 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  417 

jiunishraent,  did  not  deem  it  proper  to  interest  himself  in  his 
behalf. 

The  check  of  Ball's  Bluff  cut  short  all  the  projects  for  the  cam- 
paign which  the  organization  of  the  army,  the  season,  and  the 
condition  of  the  ground  seemed  to  impose  on  General  McClellan. 
That  incident  satisfied  his  mind  as  to  the  false  estimate  he  had 
formed  of  the  strength  of  his  adversary ;  notwithstanding  the  re- 
ports of  all  the  reconnoitring  parties  he  had  sent  out  on  the  20th, 
who  had  not  seen  the  enemy  in  force  anywhere,  he  did  not  dare  to 
put  his  army  in  motion,  and  thus  lost  the  best  opportunity  he  ever 
had  of  beginning  a  successful  and  decisive  campaign. 

Other  duties  were  soon  added  to  those  appertaining  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  which,  by  absorbing  his  whole 
activity,  diverted  his  attention  for  a  time  from  those  plans  of  cam- 
paign for  the  execution  of  which  the  public  was  waiting  so  impa- 
tiently. On  the  31st  of  October  General  Scott,  urged  by  numer- 
ous solicitations,  and  himself  convinced  that  he  had  arrived  at  an 
age  which  required  rest,  tendered  his  resignation ;  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  General  McClellan,  without,  however,  receiving  a  new 
grade,  was  invested  by  the  President  with  the  chief  command  of 
all  the  armies  of  the  republic.  From  that  moment  he  applied 
himself  to  the  task  of  combining  the  movements  of  those  armies, 
and  determined  not  to  put  that  of  the  Potomac  in  motion  until 
the  organization  of  all  the  forces  entrusted  to  his  care  should  be 
sufficiently  advanced  to  enable  him  to  undertake  offensive  opera- 
tions on  all  points  at  once. 

Halleck  was  sent  to  St.  Louis  to  prepare  for  the  campaign  ou 
the  banks  of  the  Missouri,  and  Sherman  was  set  aside  to  give 
place  to  General  Buell,  in  whom  his  friend  McClellan  placed  en- 
tire confidence.  The  fine  weather,  which  that  year  continued  for 
an  extraordinary  length  of  time,  in  vain  seemed  to  invite  the  Fed- 
erals to  emerge  from  their  long  inaction  on  the  borders  of  the  Po- 
tomac. The  end  of  the  year  on  that  side  was  only  marked  by  in- 
significant encounters.  The  Confederates  having  once  more  taken 
possession  of  Fairfax  Court-house  after  the  affair  of  Ball's 
Bluff,  a  patrol  of  cavalry  crossed  swords  with  them,  on  the 
17th  of  November,  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  village;  both 
sides  came  out  of  the  encounter  with  only  a  few  wounded,  and 
Vol.  I.— 27 


418  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

on  the  26th  another  party  had  a  similar  engagement  at  Drains- 
ville. 

A  month  later  this  village  was  the  scene  of  a  more  serious 
fight,  in  which  the  advantage  was  on  the  side  of  the  Federals. 
During  a  considerable  period  of  time  the  village  had  been  aban- 
doned by  both  Federals  and  Confederates.  At  last,  towards  the 
middle  of  December,  the  latter  having  again  established  their 
outposts  in  that  locality,  General  McCall,  who,  as  we  have  stated, 
was  encamped  on  the  Leesburg  road,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  sus- 
pension bridge,  was  ordered  to  disperse  them,  and  to  seize  the  sup- 
plies of  forage  they  had  collected. 

On  the  morning  of  the  20th  McCall  set  in  motion  the  brigade 
of  Ord,  with  a  battery  of  artillery.  Notwithstanding  the  season 
of  the  year,  the  weather  was  beautiful,  and  the  roads,  hardened  by 
a  long  dry  spell,' were  in  a  better  condition  than  in  the  middle  of 
summer.  By  a  singular  coincidence,  General  Stuart  left  his  camp 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Centreville  on  the  evening  of  the  preced- 
ing day,  and  also  took  the  road  to  Drainesville  with  a  brigade 
composed  of  about  two  thousand  five  hundred  men,  six  pieces 
of  artillery,  and  two  hundred  wagons,  intended  for  the  convey- 
ance of  the  forage  which  he  expected  to  procure  between  the 
lines  of  outposts.  These  two  bodies,  about  to  encounter  at 
Drainesville,  each  being  under  the  impression  that  they  should 
only  meet  with  small  detachments  during  their  expedition,  pro- 
ceeded at  a  rapid  rate,  with  very  little  order  and  without  scouting 
to  any  great  distance.  The  Federals  were  the  first  to  reach  the 
village  with  one  regiment,  and  drove  oif  the  few  skirmishers 
found  there.  They  had  scarcely  taken  up  their  quarters  when, 
towards  two  o'clock,  the  Confederates  made  their  appearance. 
The  Centreville  road  falls  off  at  a  right  angle  into  the  main  road 
from  Washington  to  Leesburg  about  one  hundred  feet  to  the  east- 
ward of  Drainesville.  Two  other  roads,  to  the  right  and  left  of 
the  first,  converge  towards  that  same  point  of  intersection,  and  all 
three,  before  reaching  it,  pass  through  two  woods  separated  by  a 
clearing  where  a  few  houses  stand.  The  junction  of  all  these 
roads  is  in  the  northernmost  wood.  The  other  concealed  the 
movements  of  the  Confederates  from  view.  The  latter,  deploy- 
ing their  line  under  the  trees,  rested  upon  the  three  roads,  while 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  419 

their  artillery  followed  the  middle  one.  Having  reached  the  edge 
of  the  plain,  they  found  themselves  facing  one  of  the  Federal 
regiments,  which  had  been  placed  in  advance  of  the  junction  of 
the  roads  in  order  to  guard  their  approaches.  The  others  were 
drawn  up  en  echelon  a  little  further  off  around  Drainesville. 
The  first  attack  of  Stuart's  troops  throws  some  disorder  into  the 
ranks  of  the  Federals,  and  they  take  advantage  of  it  to  occupy 
the  houses  in  the  clearing.  But  the  presence  of  General  Ord 
soon  retrieves  the  fortunes  of  the  day.  He  forms  three  of  his 
regiments  into  line,  availing  himself  of  all  the  irregularities  of 
the  ground  to  cover  them,  and  disposing  them  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  prevent  the  enemy  from  cutting  oif  his  retreat  by  turning 
his  left.  Then  he  places  his  cannon  on  the  Centreville  road, 
where  the  enemy's  artillery  is  posted ;  and  pointing  the  first  piece 
himself,  he  fires  a  shell  into  the  midst  of  the  Confederate  bat- 
tery. The  firing  is  thus  kept  up  at  a  distance  for  three-quarters 
of  an  hour.  Stuart,  in  spite  of  two  or  three  fruitless  attempts, 
fails  to  carry  the  positions  of  the  Federals.  Two  of  his  regiments, 
meeting  in  the  woods,  fire  upon  each  other;  and  this  accident 
throws  his  whole  line  into  confusion.  His  artillery  is  soon  silenced ; 
one  of  the  caissons  explodes,  killing  nearly  all  the  horses ;  he  extri- 
cates his  guns  with  difficulty,  closely  followed  by  the  Federals,  who 
have  assumed  the  offensive,  and  capture  several  prisoners.  This 
check  cost  him  forty-three  killed,  one  hundred  and  forty-three 
wounded,  and  forty-three  prisoners.  The  Federals  had  only  six 
killed  and  sixty  wounded.  Although  the  success  thus  obtained 
was  insignificant  in  itself,  in  a  battle  where  the  two  adversaries 
were  of  equal  strength.,  it  raised  the  courage  of  the  soldiers  and 
restored  to  their  commanders  a  little  of  that  confidence  which 
they  had  lost  since  the  affair  of  Ball's  Bluff.  This  was,  however, 
only  an  incident  of  little  importance,  which  afforded  no  criterion 
for  estimating  the  difficulties  which  awaited  the  army  of  the  Poto- 
mac when  the  whole  of  it  should  be  put  in  motion. 

The  inaction  which  followed  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff  had  not 
only  had  the  effect  of  tiring  out  the  patience  of  the  public,  and  of 
depriving  General  McClellan  of  a  portion  of  that  moral  influence 
which  his  success  at  Cheat  Mountain  had  given  him  over  all  his 
subordinates ;  it  had  also  enabled  the  Confederates  to  render  the 


420  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA! 

blockade  of  the  Lower  Potomac  more  stringent.  They  multi- 
plied their  batteries,  and  finally  rendered  the  navigation  of  that 
arm  of  the  sea  almost  impossible  for  merchant- vessels.  The  Fed- 
eral fleet  made  several  unsuccessful  attempts  to  dislodge  them. 
Every  time  that  the  Federals,  landing  in  force,  destroyed  a  bat- 
tery which  had  been  abandoned  on  their  approach,  another  would 
immediately  spring  up  in  its  vicinity,  and  take  up  the  scarcely 
interrupted  fire  upon  Northern  vessels.  Thus  an  expedition  to 
Mathias  Point  on  the  11th  of  November,  and  a  vigorous  cannon- 
ade between  the  Federal  flotilla  and  the  batteries  of  Shipping 
Point  on  the  9  th  of  December,  produced  no  serious  results.  The 
Potomac  remained  closed,  and  the  humiliation  of  seeing  the  capi- 
tal thus  blockaded  towards  the  sea  was  deeply  felt  in  the  North. 

Cold  and  foggy  weather,  however,  succeeded  at  last  to  the 
mildness  of  the  Indian  summer.  Then  winter  spread  her  snowy 
mantle  over  all  that  section  of  the  continent  which  was  the  thea- 
tre of  the  war,  and  towards  the  "last  days  of  the  year  1861,  that 
season,  so  severe  in  that  part  of  America,  rendered  any  great 
movement  of  troops  absolutely  impossible.  The  drilling  of  the 
soldiers  was  likewise  interrupted.  Although  they  were  told  from 
day  to  day  that  they  were  about  to  take  the  field,  they  prepared 
of  their  own  accord  to  go  into  winter  quarters.  In  the  place  of 
tents,  which  afforded  them  no  protection  either  against  the  snow 
or  the  blast,  there  rose  up  throughout  all  the  encampments  huts 
rudely  constructed  with  unhewn  logs  from  the  neighboring  forest, 
but  warm  and  solid. 

The  Confederates  imitated  them ;  and  being  thenceforth  pro- 
tected against  all  attacks,  they  settled  down  as  well  as  they  could 
into  their  winter  cantonments  around  Centreville.  The  two  months 
which  had  thus  elapsed  had  been  of  more  profit  to  them  than  to 
their  adversaries ;  notwithstanding  the  numerous  maladies  en- 
gendered among  them  by  a  climate  whose  rigors  they  had  never 
before  experienced,  they  had  seen,  thanks  to  the  activity  of  the 
central  government  and  of  their  military  leaders,  the  army  then 
commanded  by  Johnston  increased  by  one-third,  and  raised  from 
sixty-six  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-three  men,  forty- 
four  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  of  whom  were  under 
arms,  to  a  total  of  ninety-eight  thousand  and  eighty-eight,  of  whom 


BALL'S  BLUFF.  421 

sixty-two  thousand  one  hundred  and  twelve  were  present  for  ac- 
tion. The  instruction  of  these  soldiers  had  made  great  progress, 
and  a  severe  discipline  had  been  introduced  among  them,  through 
their  energetic  commanders.  But  the  first  months  of  1862  were 
not  of  equal  advantage  to  them.  Inaction,  depression,  and  sick- 
ness thinned  off  their  ranks  and  impaired  the  morale  of  those 
soldiers  of  ardent  temperament;  moreover,  the  term  of  a  large 
number  of  enlistments  expired  before  the  return  of  pleasant 
weather ;  and  notwithstanding  the  rigorous  measures  which,  as  we 
shall  see,  were  adopted  in  order  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  Con- 
federate armies,  we  shall  find  that  of  Johnston  reduced,  on  the 
1st  of  March,  to  forty-seven  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventeen 
combatants,  out  of  a  total  force  of  eighty-four  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  men. 

Both  sides  are  now  going  to  prepare  for  the  new  campaign.  To 
bring  the  year  1861  to  a  close,  it  only  remains  for  us  to  speak  of 
the  naval  operations,  or  the  combined  operations  of  the  fleet  and 
the  army,  of  which  the  extensive  coast  of  the  Confederate  States 
was  the  theatre. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PORT  BOYAL. 

THE  navy  of  the  United  States,  improvised  at  the  time  of  the 
war  of  independence,  had  not  experienced  during  the  long 
period  of  peace  which  followed  that  war  the  same  vicissitudes  as 
the  regular  army.  Its  maintenance  had  been  necessary  to  enforce 
respect  for  the  star-spangled  banner  on  every  sea ;  and  the  im- 
mense development  of  American  commerce  had  given  it  an  im- 
portance which  screened  it  from  the  economical  or  political  mea- 
sures which  had  affected  the  land  forces. 

The  crews  were  obtained  by  voluntary  enlistments,  and  were 
liberally  paid.  The  officers  were  all  pupils  of  the  Naval  Acad- 
emy at  Annapolis ;  being  admitted,  as  at  West  Point,  upon  the 
presentation  of  members  of  Congress,  or  by  appointment  of  the 
President,  they  received  at  that  institution  a  thorough  scientific 
and  practical  education;*  they  thus  formed  an  educated,  distin- 
guished, almost  aristocratic  body,  quite  exclusive,  and  ardently 
devoted  to  the  flag  whose  honor  they  worthily  sustained.  The 
extreme  neatness  and  strict  discipline  which  prevailed  on  board 
American  vessels  had  long  been  observed  in  all  the  ports  of  Eu- 
rope ;  there  had  also  been  occasion  to  admire  frequently  in  these 
ships  the  new  models  the  appearance  of  which  had  produced  a 
real  revolution  in  the  art  of  naval  construction.  The  Americans 
had  early  abandoned  high-decked  ships  and  substituted  frigates, 
which,  in  dimensions  and  sailing  qualities,  were  superior  to  any 
found  in  Europe.  When  steam  was  adopted  as  the  chief  motor 
in  the  navy,  they  persevered  in  that  direction  until  their  large 

*  The  Naval  Academy  was  established  by  the  Hon.  George  Bancroft,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy,  in  1845,  It  had  long  been  a  desideratum,  but  before  tliat 
time  midshipmen  were  only  instructed  on  board  ship  on  regular  cruises.  The 
reader  might  be  misled  by  the  author's  language  into  thinking  that  the  school 
was  as  old  as  the  navy. — Ed. 
422 


PORT  ROYAL.  423 

screw  frigates,  like  the  Merrimack,  presented  one  of   the  most 
perfect  models  of  a  war-vessel  of  the  time. 

After  having  secured  superiority  in  speed  for  their  ships,  noth- 
ing was  neglected  that  could  contribute  to  the  perfection  of  their 
armament.  They  early  appropriated  the  invention  of  General 
Paixhans.  The  substitution  of  the  shell  for  the  solid  ball  im- 
parted to  the  naval  artillery  a  destructive  power  unknown  until 
then,  which  soon  required  the  construction  of  iron-clad  vessels. 
They  applied  themselves  to  manufacturing  guns  of  heavier  calibre 
and  longer  range  than  those  in  use  on  European  ships.  They 
succeeded  ;  and  the  howitzer  to  which  Captain  Dahlgren  gave  his 
name  was  in  1861  the  most  powerful  arm  afloat.  Thanks  to  the 
invention  of  Rodman,  the  Americans  had  been  able  to  cast  iron 
guns  which,  notwithstanding  a  calibre  of  twenty-eight  or  thirty- 
one  centimetres,  had  a  remarkable  power  of  resistance.  They 
could  throw  without  eiFort,  and  by  means  of  very  light  charges 
of  powder  in  proportion  to  their  calibre,  a  heavy  weight  of  iron 
in  the  form  of  hollow  projectiles  of  enormous  size,  whereas  no 
cast-iron  gun  could  have  overcome  the  inertia  of  a  solid  ball  of 
the  same  weight  without  the  risk  of  bursting.  The  Dahlgren 
shell  possessed  an  ordinary  initial  velocity  and  a  trajectory  but 
slightly  curved ;  it  nevertheless  fired  to  a  great  distance  and  pene- 
trated the  thickest  planking  of  vessels. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  power,  he  found  the  Federal 
navy  scattered  over  all  parts  of  the  globe.  The  occupation  or 
destruction  by  the  Confederates  of  all  the  arsenals  situated  in  the 
Southern  States,  with  their  d6p6ts,  their  dock-yards,  and  their 
materiel,  and  finally  the  burning  of  the  vessels  collected  at  Nor- 
folk, deprived  it  of  its  principal  resources.  But  the  defection 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty-nine  officers,  natives  of  the  rebel  States, 
was  even  a  more  fatal  blow,  which,  for  some  time  at  least,  rendered 
it  absolutely  powerless.  Everything,  therefore,  had  to  be  created 
and  improvised,  in  order  that  the  navy  might  be  able  to  render 
effective  service  in  the  great  struggle  which  was  about  to  take 
place.  Promotion  was  not  sufficient  to  fill  up  the  disorganized 
cadres  ;  they  were  thrown  open  to  merchant-captains,  who  received 
temporary  appointments.  Generally  speaking,  these  were  excel- 
lent sea-officers;  but  having  none  of  the  traditions  of  the  military 


424  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

marine,  they  were  unable  to  maintain  that  strict  discipline  on 
board  their  vessels  without  which  commanders  soon  lose  a  part 
of  their  authority.  As  to  the  crews,  they  continued  to  be  recruited, 
like  the  land  troops,  by  voluntary  enlistments.  High  pay  and 
constantly  increasing  bounties  succeeded  in  attracting  them  in 
nearly  sufficient  numbers ;  more  than  one  vessel,  however,  ready 
to  sail,  remained  for  weeks  in  port  in  consequence  of  not  having 
been  able  to  obtain  a  full  complement  of  men. 

In  the  same  manner  that  improvised  officers  had  been  obtained 
from  the  merchant  service,  vessels  were  also  procured  and  fitted  out 
for  war  purposes,  pending  the  completion  of  the  ships  which  had 
been  placed  upon  the  stocks.  All  the  large  establishments  of  the 
North  had  received  orders  and  had  gone  actively  to  work,  but 
none  of  the  new  vessels  could  be  equipped  before  the  early  part  of 
1862.  Fortunately,  among  her  numerous  steam-vessels  America 
possessed  vessels  perfectly  adapted  to  the  service  which  the  navy 
was  at  first  required  to  perform — the  maintenance  of  the  block- 
ade. Indeed,  to  give  chase  to  smugglers  required  vessels  of  rapid 
speed,  and  capable  of  holding  their  place  in  all  weathers  upon  a 
difficult  coast,  but  two  or  three  guns  of  long  range  were  sufficient 
for  their  armament.  The  conversion  of  steam-packets  into  war 
vessels  was  therefore  easy.  Some  were  hired,  others  were  bought; 
a  few  even  were  given  to  the  government  as  patriotic  offi3rings : 
among:  the  latter  the  finest  and  fastest  of  all  was  The  Vander- 
bilt,  presented  to  the  government  by  the  wealthy  merchant  whose 
name  it  bore.  Besides  this  fleet  of  fast  vessels,  there  was  collected 
by  the  same  process  a  fleet  of  transports  consisting  of  vessels  of 
less  speed,  river  steamboats  whose  hulls  had  been  more  or  less 
strengthened  to  enable  them  to  live  in  a  heavy  sea,  and  finally . 
sailing  vessels  intended  for  the  subsistence  department.  At  the 
end  of  the  year  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  had  bought  and 
equipped  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  vessels  of  all  kinds,  car- 
rying five  hundred  and  eighteen  guns  and  representing  seventy-one 
thousand  two  hundred  and  ninety-seven  tons.  Fifty-two  new 
vessels,  with  an  armament  of  two  hundred  and. fifty-six  guns  and 
registering  forty-one  thousand  four  hundred  and  forty-eight  tons, 
were  either  in  process  of  construction  or  already  completed. 

The  war  was  about  to  impose  a  triple  task  upon  the  Federal 


PORT  ROYAL.  425 

navy — the  protection  of  merchant-vessels  against  privateers,  the 
maintenance  of  the  blockade,  and  a  share  in  the  operations  of  the 
land  forces  on  the  enemy's  coast.  We  proceed  to  show  how  it 
performed  these  three  divisions  of  its  task  in  the  course  of  the 
year  1861. 

As  we  have  stated  elsewhere,  Mr.  Davis  had  encouraged  the 
equipment  of  privateers,  immediately  after  the  capture  of  Fort 
Sumter,  on  April  17th,  and  had  oifered  letters  of  marque  to  those 
who  were  willing  to  cruise  under  the  Confederate  flag.  The  Con- 
gress at  Montgomery,  on  its  part,  had  promised  to  the  crews  of 
privateers  a  premium  of  twenty-five  dollars  for  every  prisoner, 
and  for  every  Federal  vessel  which  should  be  destroyed  in  a  naval 
combat  a  sum  equal  to  as  many  times  one  hundred  francs  as  the 
vessel  had  men  on  board.  At  the  same  time,  the  Southern  gov- 
ernment set  to  work  to  fit  out  vessels  destined  to  cruise  under  its 
war-flag  against  the  commerce  of  the  Northern  States. 

The  Confederates  had  no  merchant  fleet  in  their  ports  that 
could  supply  them  with  the  large  vessels  required  for  cruising  on 
the  high  seas.  They  did  not  lack  materials  for  their  construction, 
but  they  needed  experienced  mechanics.  They  confined  them- 
selves, therefore,  to  arming  vessels  of  which  surprise  or  treason 
had  given  them  possession.  These  consisted  at  first  of  six  cut- 
ters belonging  to  the  Federal  revenue  service,  which  happened  to 
be  in  Southern  ports  at  the  time  when  the  rebellion  broke  out. 
To  these  were  added  about  a  dozen  small  steamers  purchased 
by  the  government.  In  short,  during  the  six  weeks  following 
the  proclamation  of  Mr.  Davis,  private  individuals  responded  to 
that  call  by  equipping  as  privateers  about  twenty  vessels  of  the 
same  pattern,  nearly  all  of  which  had  previously  been  employed 
in  the  coasting  trade  or  as  pilot-boats  along  the  Southern  coasts. 

The  merchant-vessels  of  the  North,  overtaken  in  Southern  porta 
by  the  ordinances  of  secession,  or  sailing  peaceably  in  the  neigh- 
boring seas  without  any  suspicion  of  danger,  offered  a  rich  prize 
to  the  privateers,  which  captured  a  large  number  of  them.  The 
time  came,  however,  when  the  boldest  among  them  learned  to 
their  cost  that  they  could  not  pursue  with  impunity  the  adven- 
turous career  which  exceptional  circumstances  had  favored  during 
a  few  weeks.     At  the  end  of  May  a  small  schooner  of  fifty-four 


426  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

tons,  called  jTJie  Savannah,  formerly  a  pilot-boat,  armed  with  an 
eighteen  pounder,  went  out  of  the  port  of  Charleston  under  the 
Confederate  flag ;  on  the  3d  of  June,  after  securing  a  few  prizes, 
the  privateer,  deceived  by  appearances,  approached  the  brig-of-war 
Perry,  and  discovering  her  mistake  too  late  was  obliged  to  strike 
her  colors  after  having  vainly  attempted  to  effect  her  escape.  Her 
crew  of  twenty  men  were  landed  at  New  York  to  be  tried  for  the 
crime  of  piracy. 

This  trial,  which  was  to  last  for  a  considerable  time,  gave  rise 
to  questions  of  the  gravest  importance  regarding  public  law. 
The  Federal  government,  never  having  recognized  tlie  insurgents 
of  the  South  as  belligerents,  could  not,  strictly  speaking,  consider 
them  in  any  other  light  than  that  of  malefactors.  Every  Con- 
federate soldier  who  killed  a  Federal  was  in  its  estimation  simply 
a  murderer;  every  privateer  which  captured  a  merchant- vessel 
carrying  the  Federal  flag  was  nothing  but  a  robber  and  a  pirate. 
But  it  was  indispensable  that  there  should  be  complete  assimila- 
tion between  the  acts  committed  on  the  sea  and  on  the  land.  As 
the  government  of  the  United  States  had  declined  in  1856  to 
participate  in  the  declarations  of  the  congress  of  Paris,  it  could 
not  have  questioned  the  right  of  its  adversaries  to  cruise  against 
its  commerce,  if  it  had  recognized  them  in  the  capacity  of  bel- 
ligerents ;  and  having  denied  that  character,  it  could  not  prosecute 
the  sailors  of  the  Savannah  as  pirates  except  by  instituting  simi- 
lar criminal  proceedings  against  every  prisoner  taken  on  land.  It 
was  sufficient  to  enunciate  such  a  proposition  to  show  its  absurd- 
ity ;  the  magnitude  of  the  rebellion,  the  fear  of  inevitable  repri- 
sals, humanity,  policy — in  fine,  good  sense — forbade  the  Federal 
government  from  pursuing  such  a  course ;  nor  was  the  idea  even 
contemplated.  From  the  moment  that  Confederate  soldiers  cap- 
tured on  land  were  considered  as  prisoners  of  war,  the  same  im- 
munity from  all  personal  prosecution  had  to  be  extended  to  the 
crews  of  Southern  privateers.  The  government  at  Washington, 
bound  by  Mr.  liincoln's  proclamations  and  pressed  by  public 
opinion,  did  not  at  first  understand  this.  But  the  battle  of  Bull 
E,un  soon  gave  Mr.  Davis  the  means  of  enabling  his  opponents 
to  form  a  more  correct  estimate  of  the  situation,  by  delivering  a 
laroe  number  of  Federal  officers  into  his  hands.     He  had  Colonel 


PORT  ROYAL.  427 

Corcorau  and  some  of  his  companions  in  captivity  put  in  irons, 
and  declared  that  their  lives  should  answer  for  those  of  the  sail- 
ors of  the  Savannah.  The  proceedings  against  the  latter  were 
immediately  suspended ;  no  sentence  was  pronounced,  and  the  pri- 
vateers-men were  finally  included  in  the  cartels  for  the  exchange 
of  prisoners. 

A  few  days  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  another  vessel,  called 
the  Petrel,  was  getting  ready  for  sea;  two  whole  months  had 
elapsed  since  the  Savannah  had  left  Charleston,  so  great  was  the 
inability  of  the  Confederates  to  create  a  navy.  The  career  of 
the  new  privateer,  which  got  under  way  on  the  28th  of  July,  was 
to  be  of  even  shorter  duration  than  that  of  her  predecessor.  She 
had  scarcely  left  the  port  when  she  was  discovered  by  the  Federal 
frigate  the  St.  Law7^enee,  which  was  stationed  on  the  coast ;  the 
crew  of  the  latter  vessel  concealed  themselves  between-decks ;  the 
yard-arms  and  rigging  were  reduced,  so  that  the  Petrel  thought 
she  had  to  deal  with  a  large  three-masted  merchant-vessel,  and 
gave  her  chase.  The  frigate,  running  with  calculated  slowness, 
enticed  her  imprudent  pursuer  away  from  the  coast ;  and  when  the 
latter  was  within  good  range,  the  Federals  suddenly  opened  three 
port-holes.  Three  projectiles,  one  of  which  was  a  shell  of  twenty 
centimetres,  struck  the  privateer,  and  that  frail  vessel  sank  in- 
stantly. All  her  crew,  with  the  exception  of  four  men,  were 
taken  on  board  the  St.  Laim'ence. 

In  the  mean  while,  a  far  more  formidable  adversary,  and  one 
destined  to  inflict  cruel  losses  on  American  commerce,  had  just 
put  to  sea  from  another  quarter.  The  Ilarques  de  la  Uabana 
was  a  screw  steamer  of  about  six  hundred  tons,  an  excellent 
sailer  and  staunch  sea-boat.  She  w^as  plying  between  Havana 
and  New  Orleans,  and  happened  to  be  at  the  latter  port  when 
secession  was  proclaimed ;  the  Confederate  government  purchased 
her,  put  a  few  guns  of  heavy  calibre  on  board,  gave  her,  with 
the  name  of  Sumter,  a  crew  composed  of  adventurers  from  every 
part  of  the  world,  and  placed  her  under  the  command  of  Raphael 
Semmes.  This  person,  formerly  an  officer  of  the  Federal  navy, 
a  bold  and  energetic  sailor,  was  well  chosen  for  the  task  imposed 
upon  him,  and  during  the  four  years  of  his  privateer  life  he 
acquired,  if  not  glory  and  honor,  one  of  those  European  celebri- 


428  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ties  wliich  form  the  highest  reward  of  certain  ambitious  men. 
On  the  30th  of  June  the  Sumter  left  the  Mississippi  by  way  of 
the  Passe-di-Loutre,  eluding  the  Federal  blockader,  the  Brooklyn, 
a  sailing  sloop-of-war,  who  gave  her  chase  without  effect.  Once 
on  the  high  sea,  the  privateer  had  certain  advantages  over  her 
adversaries  of  which  she  cleverly  availed  herself.  Owing  to  her 
great  speed,  every  sailing-vessel  was  at  her  mercy,  and  she  could 
easily  avoid  nearly  all  the  Federal  men-of-war  that  were  sent  in 
pursuit  of  her.  The  immensity  of  the  sea  was  her  safest  refuge ; 
just  heard  of  in  one  port,  all  she  had  to  do  was  to  resume 
her  cruise,  to  hide  in  the  midst  of  the  ocean,  and  reappear  sud- 
denly at  the  point  where  she  Avas  least  expected.  All  the  vessels 
sailing  under  the  Federal  flag  from  the  Bermudas  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Amazon  might  fear  to  become  her  prey.  Every  time  that 
a  light  smoke  was  descried  in  the  horizon  everybody  tried  to  guess 
by  the  slightest  indications  the  character  of  the  vessel  that  was 
rapidly  approaching,  for  the  loss  of  a  few  minutes  might  deprive 
the  heavy  three-master  laden  with  a  rich  cargo  of  her  last  chance 
to  escape  from  the  terrible  privateer. 

Conformably  to  international  regulations,  the  first  vessels  cap- 
tured by  Semmes  were  sent  to  New  Orleans  in  charge  of  some  of 
his  men.  But  these  prizes  having  again  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  Federals,  he  soon  threw  aside  all  consideration  of  the  rules 
prescribed  by  the  law  of  nations ;  and  instead  of  being  everywhere 
treated  as  a  pirate  on  that  account,  he  was  sustained  and  encouraged 
through  the  connivance  of  the  authorities  in  almost  all  European 
colonies,  and  in  some  of.  the  American  States.  International  law, 
such  as  it  has  been  established  for  more  than  two  centuries  by 
treaties  and  usages,  in  sanctioning  the  capture  on  the  high  seas,  by 
a  belligerent,  of  the  merchant- vessels  sailing  under  the  flag  of  his 
adversary,  has  subjected  this  right  of  capture  to  restrictions  which 
are  a  strong  guarantee  against  the  abuse  of  a  power  so  excessive. 
The  commander  of  the  vessel  effecting  the  capture  cannot  him- 
self determine  the  validity  of  the  prize ;  he  is  obliged  to  send  her 
to  one  of  the  ports  of  his  country,  before  a  prize  court,  which,  if 
proper,  adjudges  the  vessel  to  him  and  declares  the  validity  of  her 
capture.  The  adjudications  of  this  special  tribunal  are  precisely 
what  distinguish  lawful  captures  from  acts  of  piracy.     But  when 


PORT  ROYAL.  429 

Semmes  saw  that  the  blockade  interfered  with  the  )bservance  of 
these  protective  formalities,  he  took  upon  himself  to  institute  a 
prize  court  on  board  his  own  vessel ;  and  as  he  had  no  other  ob- 
ject than  to  injure  and  intimidate  the  commerce  of  the  North,  he 
adopted  the  barbarous  system  of  destroying  every  vessel  which 
fell  into  his  hands,  after  having  himself  decided  upon  the  validity 
of  the  prize.  As  soon  as  captured  the  vessel  was  set  on  fire,  the 
crew  was  landed,  without  resources,  at  the  nearest  port,  Semmes 
only  retaining  as  a  souvenir  the  chronometers  of  his  victims ;  he 
made  a  collection  of  them ;  they  were  his  trophies.  He  was  even 
accused,  although  he  always  denied  the  charge,  of  having  refused, 
at  times,  to  examine  the  bills  of  lading  of  American  vessels  with 
neutral  cargoes  on  board,  in  order  to  prevent  their  escape.  Not- 
withstanding the  just  indignation  caused  by  such  acts  among 
those  who  regarded  international  law  as  one  of  the  most  precious 
acquisitions  of  a  civilized  age,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  Fed- 
eral authorities,  the  Sumter,  far  from  being  treated  as  a  pirate, 
met  with  such  a  reception  in  most  of  the  neutral  ports  she  visited 
as  no  belligerent  man-of-war  could  have  expected.  Contrary  to 
all  usages,  he  was  allowed  to  take  all  such  prizes  as  were  too  pre- 
cious to  be  burnt,  although  not  legally  adjudicated,  into  neutral 
ports  on  the  coasts  of  New  Grenada.  In  the  English  and  French 
colonies  he  was  permitted,  still  contrary  to  international  regula- 
tions, to  provide  himself  with  supplies  of  coal  far  beyond  what 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  enable  him  to  reach  a  Confederate 
port,  and  he  thus  found  all  the  resources  he  needed  to  continue 
his  depredations.  The  authorities  of  Cuba  were  more  scrupu- 
lous, it  is  true,  and  restored  all  the  prizes,  illegally  brought  into 
Spanish  waters,  to  their  legitimate  owners. 

Many  Federal  vessels  were  sent  in  pursuit  of  the  Sumter,  but 
they  rarely  met  with  her,  and  she  always  succeeded  in  getting 
away  from  them.  Sometimes  sailing  under  one  flag,  sometimes 
under  another,  which,  for  a  vessel  of  war,  was  a  violation  of  the 
rights  of  those  powers  whose  ensign  she  borrowed,  Semmes  em- 
ployed all  the  autumn  of  1861  in  scouring  the  Atlantic,  carrying 
everywhere  terror  and  distress  to  American  commerce.  After 
taking  seventeen  prizes  he  arrived  at  last,  in  the  early  part  of 
1862,  at  Gibraltar,  where  he  intended  to  establish  the  base  of  his 


430  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

operations  in  European  seas,  but  where  his  exploits,  contrary 
to  his  expectations,  were  suddenly  interrupted,  as  we  shall  show 
in  our  narrative  of  the  maritime  events  of  that  new  year. 

The  other  war-vessels  equipped  by  the  Confederates,  not  pos- 
sessing the  same  nautical  qualities  as  the  Sumter,  did  not  meet  with 
the  same  success.  All  those  who  ventured  upon  any  daring  en- 
terprise were  soon  punished  by  the  Federal  navy,  which,  in  the 
fall  of  1861,  had  finally  succeeded  in  collecting  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  fast  vessels  to  scour  the  seas  and  protect  the  commerce  of 
the  nation. 

The  brig  Jefferson  Davis,  fitted  out  as  a  privateer  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  by  private  individuals,  had  put  to  sea  in  the  beginning 
of  August.  After  having  made  several  prizes,  which  she  burnt, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Sumter,  she  was  obliged,  in  order  to  escape 
from  the  Federal  cruisers,  to  seek  refuge  at  St.  Augustine,  in 
Florida,  where  she  ran  aground  at  the  entrance  of  the  port,  and 
was  lost. 

The  NasJiville,  a  side-wheel  steamer  and  packet  belonging  to 
the  New  York  and  Charleston  line,  had  been  converted  into  a  war- 
vessel  by  the  Confederate  government  in  the  latter  port.  On  the 
26th  of  October  she  went  to  sea  under  the  command  of  Captain 
Pegram,  formerly  an  officer  of  the  Federal  navy,  who,  even  be- 
fore cruising  in  the  Atlantic,  repaired  to  the  English  station  at 
the  Bermudas,  where  he  procured  fresh  provisions  and  obtained, 
still  in  violation  of  international  law,  a  sufficient  supply  of  coal 
to  take  him  into  European  waters.  He  arrived  there,  after 
having  burnt  a  merchant-vessel  on  his  way,  but  did  not  leave 
English  ports  again,  where  the  Nashville  had  undergone  repairs, 
until  the  following  year,  to  return  to  the  American  coast,  where, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  his  ship  was  destroyed,  not  long  after,  by 
a  Federal  cruiser. 

Finally,  on  the  12th  of  November  a  schooner  of  a  hundred  tons, 
called  the  Beauregard,  which  had  been  fitted  out  for  privateering 
purposes  and  had  taken  a  few  prizes  in  the  Bahama  waters,  M^as 
captured  by  the  Anderson,  a  sailing-vessel,  which  had  been  fitted 
out  by  the  Washington  government  and  was  employed  in  cruising 
on  the  coast  of  Florida. 

The  efforts  of  the  Federal  navy  had  therefore  partially  sue- 


PORT  ROYAL.  431 

ceeded  in  freeing  American  commerce  from  the  clangers  which 
had  beset  it  during  the  first  months  of  the  war.  But  this  danger 
was  soon  to  reappear,  thanks  to  the  assistance  which  the  Confed- 
erates found  in  England.  Having  become  convinced  of  the  im- 
possibility of  creating  a  naval  force  at  home  able  to  cruise  in 
every  sea  without  risk  of  becoming  the  prey  of  Federal  cruisers, 
the  Confederate  authorities  had  sent  several  agents  to  Europe 
about  the  middle  of  the  year  1861,  with  instructions  to  fit  out 
vessels  of  war,  which,  by  fraudulently  hoisting  the  Southern  flag, 
should  resume  the  work  of  destruction  which  they  were  unable  to 
continue  themselves.  The  cotton  which  the  secessionists  possessed 
enabled  them  to  obtain  the  required  amount  of  money  to  purchase 
these  vessels.  Those  agents  had  found  in  England  a  favorable 
reception.  Captain  Bullock,  foremost  among  them,  an  able  offi- 
cer, full  of  resources,  assisted  by  the  firm  of  Eraser  &  Trenholm, 
w^ho  represented  the  financial  interests  of  the  Richmond  govern- 
ment, knew  well  how  to  avail  himself  of  these  dispositions,  and 
by  the  end  of  the  year  several  privateers  were  preparing  to  put  to 
sea.  We  shall  speak  hereafter  of  the  war  they  waged  against 
American  commerce. 

The  maintenance  of  the  blockade  was  another  and  a  no  less 
difficult  part  of  the  task  so  suddenly  imposed  upon  the  Federal 
navy.  As  we  have  stated  above,  the  blockade,  which  was  pro- 
claimed on  the  19th  of  April,  after  the  bombardment  of  Fort 
Sumter,  against  all  the  maritime  States  which  had  just  entered  into 
confederacy  at  Montgomery,  was  shortly  after  extended  to  the 
coasts  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  This  proclamation  of 
the  President  gave  rise  to  questions  of  international  law  of  the 
gravest  character. 

In  the  first  place,  had  a  government  the  right  of  blockading,  as 
a  mere  measure  of  policy,  a  portion  of  its  own  coasts,  and  of  seiz- 
ing all  neutral  vessels  which  should  attempt  to  violate  it?  or  did 
not  an  act  of  so  grave  a  character  imply  a  formal  recognition  of 
the  quality  of  belligerents  in  the  insurgents,  against  whom  the 
Federal  government  was  obliged  to  employ  such  measures  ?  The 
latter  interpretation  was  the  most  rational,  yet  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment could  sustain  the  former  by  alleging  that,  in  the  Presi- 
dent's  proclamation  itself,  the  blockade  was   represented  as  a 


432  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

means  for  collecting  custom-house  duties,  which  the  insurgent 
States  sought  to  get  rid  of.  Indeed,  the  question  was  never  thor- 
oughly discussed.  The  English  government,  with  a  malevolent 
haste  which  the  American  people  regarded  as  a  cruel  wrong,  took 
advantage  of  the  first  news  of  the  blockade  proclamation  to  recog- 
nize the  belligerent  rights  of  the  insurgents,  and  to  publish  in  its 
turn  a  declaration  of  neutrality.  In  performing  an  act  of  so 
much  importance  it  did  not  even  wait  for  the  full  text  of  the 
proclamation,  which  the .  despatches  had  abbreviated,  so  that  the 
Washington  government  was  justified  in  stating  that  iho,  blockade 
was  only  a  pretext  by  which  England  sought  to  disguise  a  pre- 
conceived purpose,  prompted  by  the  first  success  of  the  rebellion 
in  the  harbor  of  Charleston.  The  Federals,  on  their  part,  with- 
out ever  recognizing  in  plain  words  all  the  belligerent  rights  of 
their  opponents,  had  never  disputed  them,  in  fact,  except  in  the 
case  of  the  crew  of  the  Savannah,  above  mentioned. 

The  second  question  raised  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  was 
yet  more  serious ;  it  concerned  the  efficiency  of  the  blockade  it- 
self. Paper  blockades,  against  which  neutrals  so  justly  and  so 
energetically  protested  during  the  wars  in  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century,  are  no  longer  countenanced  by  international 
usage.  The  right  in  virtue  of  which  a  belligerent  can  confiscate 
all  neutral  vessels  who  shall  attempt  to  enter  a  blockaded  port 
becomes,  in  the  hands  of  a  great  naval  power,  an  instrument  of 
tyranny  and  oppression  unless  it  be  limited  by  the  strictest  rule. 
This  rule  does  not  admit  of  fictitious  blockades,  and  requires  that 
the  cruisers  of  a  belligerent,  to  enable  them  to  exercise  the  right 
of  capture,  shall  be  sufficiently  numerous  to  keep  a  constant  and 
effective  watch  over  the  port,  or  over  the  whole  extent  of  the 
coast  under  blackade.  If  the  blockade  is  not  maintained  in  con- 
formity with  these  conditions — if  it  can  be  proved  that  it  is  easy 
to  elude  it — then  neutrals  are  justified  in  not  respecting  it. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  proclaimed  the  blockade  of  the  coasts  of  the 
Confederate  States,  the  Federal  navy  was  not  in  a  condition  to  ex- 
ercise a  surveillance  over  their  whole  extent.  Those  coasts,  in  fact, 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac  to  that  of  the  Rio  Grande,  extended 
to  a  distance  of  more  than  four  thousand  five  hundred  kilometres. 
Deeply  indented  with  bays,  arms  of  the  sea,  and  estuaries,  they 


PORT  ROYAL.  433 

afforded  innumerable  places  of  refuge  to  vessels  arriving  from 
the  open  sea,  and  an  excellent  shelter  to  those  who  desired  to  fit 
out  their  vessels  without  being  observed.  The  Atlantic  coasts, 
low  and  difficult  to  watch,  were  swept  by  terrible  tempests  ;  those 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  bristled  with  reefs  and  rocks.  England 
possessed  two  naval  stations  admirably  situated  for  reyictualling 
and  outfitting  vessels  intended  for  the  contraband  trade  with 
Southern  ports ;  these  were  the  Bermudas,  in  the  Atlantic,  and 
the  Bahama  Islands,  opposite  Florida,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico. 

No  maritime  power  had  ever  yet  attempted  to  effectively  block- 
ade a  coast  of  such  extent.  Consequently,  it  would  have  been 
more  prudent  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  have  limited  his  dec- 
larations to  the  measure  of  his  resources,  and  to  have  only  block- 
aded at  first  a  few  of  the  principal  ports,  such  as  Charleston,  Sa- 
vannah, and  New  Orleans,  before  which  it  was  easy  to  station  a 
line  of  cruisers.  He  could  not  justify  a  fictitious  blockade  of  the 
Southern  States  by  invoking  the  rights  of  the  Federal  sovereignty 
over  those  States;  for  an  analogous  case  had  occurred  in  1822, 
and  on  that  occasion  the  Washington  government  had  refused  to 
recognize  the  right  of  Spain  to  declare  a  paper  blockade  of  her 
own  American  colonies,  then  engaged  in  the  war  of  independence. 
But  these  theoretical  difficulties  were  avoided  in  practice.  The 
American  government,  which  contented  itself  at  first  with  the 
effective  blockade  of  a  few  ports,  prevented  any  misunderstanding, 
by  only  making  prizes  off  those  ports,  and  every  time  that  its  ac- 
tion was  extended  to  some  new  point,  it  granted  the  same  delays 
to  neutrals,  in  regard  to  such  point,  as  it  had  accorded  at  the 
lime  of  the  proclamation  of  the  blockade. 

At  last,  after  months  of  incessant  efforts,  the  Federal  navy  suc- 
ceeded, as  we  have  seen,  in  reconstructing  both  its  personnel  and 
materiel.  As  the  season  advanced,  and  the  inclement  weather  ren- 
dered it  more  difficult  and  troublesome  to  maintain  the  blockade, 
the  number  of  vessels  employed  in  that  service  was  increased. 
Consequently,  at  the  end  of  a  year,  at  the  period  when  the  At- 
lantic coast  is  incessantly  lashed  by  a  raging  sea  and  the  north- 
ern gales  sweep  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  blockade  was  effectually 
established  from  the  vicinity  of  Washington  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Vol.  I.— 28 


434  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Rio  Grande.  Two  squadrons,  which  were  each  to  be  subdivided 
at  the  commencement  of  1862,  had  been  formed  in  the  month  of 
July,  1861.  One,  called  the  Atlantic  blockading  squadron,  con- 
sisted of  twenty-two  vessels,  carrying  two  hundred  and  ninety-six 
guns  and  three  thousand  three  hundred  men,  and  was  commanded 
by  Coramgdore  Stringhara.  The  other,  under  Commodore  Mer- 
vine,  known  as  the  blockading  squadron  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
was  composed  of  twenty-one  ships,  with  an  armament  of  two 
hundred  and  eighty-two  guns  and  a  force  of  three  thousand  five 
hundred  men. 

We  cannot  enter  into  a  detailed  account  of  the  incidents  which 
marked  the  last  six  months  of  the  year  as  regards  the  Federal 
sailors.  Their  task  was  the  more  onerous  on  account  of  its  ex- 
treme monotony.  To  the  watches  and  fatigues  of  every  kind 
which  the  duties  of  the  blockade  service  involved  there  were 
added  difficulties  of  another  character.  It  was  necessary  to  in- 
struct the  newly-recruited  crews,  to  train  officers  who  had  been 
taken  from  the  merchant  navy,  and  to  ascertain,  under  the  worst 
possible  circumstances,  the  good  and  bad  qualities  of  merchant- 
vessels  too  quickly  converted  into  men-of-war.  In  these  junc- 
tures the  Federal  navy  displayed  a  perseverance,  a  devotion,  and 
a  knowledge  of  its  profession,  which  reflect  as  much  honor  upon 
it  as  its  more  brilliant  feats  of  arms.  A  few  days  after  the  dis- 
aster of  Bull  Run  these  fleets,  then  scarcely  organized,  began  to 
make  the  victorious  Confederates  feel  the  dangers  to  which  their 
maritime  inferiority  exposed  them.  Numerous  prizes  soon  taught 
the  commerce  of  neutrals  that  the  blockade,  thenceforth  effective, 
must  be  respected.  The  rapid  rise  in  the  prices  of  all  imported 
commodities  in  the  insurgent  States  presented  the  exact  measure 
of  the  efficiency  of  that  blockade,  and  furnished  an  irrefutable 
proof  against  those  who  disputed  its  legality.  The  almost  abso- 
lute commercial  isolation  of  so  vast  a  country  as  the  Confederate 
States  is  an  extraordinary  fact  which  it  is  interesting  to  study  in 
its  various  phases. 

It  took  a  considerable  time  to  establish  this  isolation  on  land 
along  the  line  which  separated  the  two  belligerents  from  east  to 
west.  In  sj)ite  of  the  war,  relations  were  not  abruptly  suspended ; 
the  importation  of  manufactured  goods  and  of  pork,  together 


PORT  ROYAL.  435 

with  the  exportation  of  cotton,  continued  for  some  time,  even  in 
the  vicinity"  of  battle-fields,  notwithstanding  all  the  prohibitions 
of  the  combatants.  In  the  West  the  Confederacy  was  surrounded 
by  immense  deserts,  which  presented  an  impassable  barrier  against 
commerce  from  the  borders  of  the  Arkansas  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  where  the  frontier  of  Texas  and  Mexico  comes  down 
to  the  sea.  It  was  only  at  this  point  that  the  neighborhood  of  a 
neutral  State  could  offer  an  always  oj)en  breach  in  the  block- 
ade. At  the  enti'ance  of  the  river,  on  the  Mexican  side,  is 
the  small  port  of  Matamoras,  where  foreign  vessels  could  laud 
their  merchandise  under  the  very  eyes  of  American  cruisers. 
These  goods,  for  their  better  safety,  were  then  taken  up  the  Rio 
Grande,  or  crossing  the  river  directly  were  accumulated  in  the 
little  American  town  of  Brownsville.  But  inasmuch  as,  before 
the  war,  all  the  carrying  trade  in  Texas  was  effected  by  coasting- 
vessels,  that  State  had  remained  entirely  without  roads,  and  the 
journey  from  Brownsville  to  the  Mississippi,  being  too  difficult 
for  any  extensive  trade,  reduced  the  breach  to  the  proportions  of 
a  mere  fissure.  The  maritime  blockade  from  Matamoras  to  the 
Potomac  completed  that  immense  circumvallation.  Its  first  ob- 
ject, leaving  out  of  consideration  the  obstacle  it  placed  to  the 
egress  of  Confederate  privateers,  was  to  prevent  the  exportation 
of  cotton  in  the  interest  of  the  Richmond  government,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  introduction  of  arms  and  war  materiel,  which  were 
brought  over  in  exchange.  Cotton  was  the  element  of  wealth 
which  the  Confederates  sought  to  turn  to  advantage,  and  which 
their  adversaries  determined  either  to  render  useless  in  their  hands 
or  to  appropriate  to  themselves.  Every  blockade-runner  leaving 
Southern  ports  had  her  hold  filled  with  that  precious  commodity, 
while  on  land,  whenever  the  hostile  armies  found  an  opportunity, 
they  contended  for  the  possession  of  the  depots  where  it  was 
stored.  The  Federal  government  confiscated  the  cotton  to  sell  it 
and  cause  the  price  to  be  lowered  in  the  European  markets ;  the 
Confederates  destroyed  it  rather  than  see  it  fall  into  the  hands  of 
their  adversaries ;  they  wanted  to  compel  neutrals  to  apply  to 
them  alone  for  supplies  of  that  article,  and,  if  need  be,  to  inter- 
fere in  their  behalf.  In  proportion  as  the  blockade  is  prolonged 
the  cultivation  of  th(  soil  will  undergo  a  change,  and  cotton  will 


436  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

give  place  to  cereals,  which  will  secure  sufficient  means  of  sub- 
sistence to  the  blockaded  populations ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  all 
manufactured  goods  will  become  more  and  more  scarce,  and  at- 
tain prices  as  fabulous  as  those  paid  in  Europe  for  colonial  com- 
modities during  the  continental  blockade. 

This  commercial  isolation  of  the  insurgent  States  did  not  pro- 
duce all  the  results  which  had  been  anticipated  in  the  North :  the 
people  of  the  South  were  not  starved,  nor  did  the  want  of  arms 
and  ammunition  put  an  end  to  the  struggle ;  but  the  blockade 
caused  incalculable  injury  to  the  Confederates  by  depriving  them 
of  all  the  resources  which  they  might  have  derived  from  E-urope, 
and  by  preventing  them  from  waging  war  on  the  sea,  which 
would  have  ruined  the  commerce  of  the  North.  If  this  block- 
ade had  not  been  rigidly  maintained,  the  Federals  would  probably 
never  have  been  able  to  subdue  their  adversaries. 

The  Confederates,  notwithstanding  the  feeble  means  at  their  dis- 
posal, naturally  made  every  effort  to  break  through  the  restraints 
of  the  blockade.  We  shall  briefly  indicate  here,  following  the 
chronological  order,  these  various  attempts,  the  measures  adopted 
by  the  Federals  to  baffle  them,  and  the  principal  incidents  which 
marked  the  operations  of  the  blockade  until  the  end  of  the  year 
1861. 

On  the  5th  of  October  a  boat  belonging  to  the  Federal  vessel 
Louisiana  penetrated  into  one  of  the  large  lagoons  on  the  Vir- 
ginia coast  by  the  pass  called  Chincoteague  Inlet,  and  destroyed 
a  schooner  which  the  Confederates  were  fitting  out  for  a  cruise. 
This  affair  cost  them  a  few  wounded. 

On  the  9th  one  of  the  large  Federal  transport-ships  anchored 
in  Hampton  Roads,  having  been  driven  upon  the  enemy's  beach 
in  Lynn  Haven  Bay,  fell  under  the  fire  of  one  of  the  Confederate 
batteries  at  Sewell's  Point ;  she  was  about  to  be  captured,  when 
the  little  steamer  Daylight  went  to  her  assistance,  and  after  a  brisk 
cannonade  succeeded  in  silencing  the  guns  of  her  adversaries. 

On  the  12th  of  October  the  Confederates  tried,  for  the  first 
time,  to  force  the  blockade.  The  Federal  division  which  guarded 
the  entrances  of  the  Mississippi  was  attacked  and  nearly  dis- 
persed by  an  unlooked-for  adversary,  fitted  out  by  the  authorities 
of  New  Orl(\ans  for  the  purpose  of  reopening  their  port,  which 


PORT  ROYAL.  437 

Lad  been  closed  fc;?  six  months.  It  is  necessary  to  cast  a  glance 
over  the  map  to  form  an  idea  of  the  extraordinary  configura- 
tion of  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi.  The  great  river,  which 
empties  its  muddy  waters  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  not  only 
forms  a  delta  like  the  Nile,  the  work  of  a  long  series  of  centuries, 
but  also  two  natural  embankments,  which  confine  its  waters  and 
extend  with  them  to  the  sea.  At  a  certain  distance  from  the 
coast,  the  river,  thus  prolonged,  becomes  divided;  it  takes  the 
shape  of  a  half-closed  fan,  each  branch  lying  between  two  similar 
dykes.  Its  depth  diminishes  gradually  with  the  rapidity  of  its 
current,  and  it  drives  slowly  before  it,  like  a  moving  barrier,  an 
accumulated  mass  of  mud  which  interposes  a  serious  obstacle  to 
navigation ;  its  waters  no  longer  advance,  but  from  the  pressure 
of  the  mass  which  follows  them  they  finally  mingle  with  that  sea 
which  seems  to  shrink  from  their  contact.  Two  important  forti- 
fications. Fort  Jackson  and  Fort  St,  Philip,  command  the  course^ 
of  the  river  near  the  point  where  it  leaves  the  coast,  to  discharge 
into  the  open  sea,  the  basis  of  the  new  delta  which  has  been  per- 
ceptibly forming  around.  The  point  where  the  waters  divide 
is  called  La  Tete-des-Passes,  and  among  tliese  channels  there 
are  only  three  practicable  for  vessels  of  great  draught — on  one 
side  the  south-west  pass,  and  in  an  entirely  opposite  direction 
La  Passe-a-Lovtres  and  the  north-east  pass.  The  Confederates 
occupied  the  forts,  but  it  was  impossible  to  construct  any  forti- 
fication lower  down  the  Mississippi,  as  the  water  penetrated 
everywhere  the  spongy  soil  of  the  levees  which  border  the  river. 
The  Federals,  therefore,  had  found  no  difficulty  in  entering  these 
passes ;  and  at  the  TMe  pass  they  had  established  a  naval  station 
consisting  of  the  sloop-of-war  Richmond,  the  two  war-steamers 
Preble  and  Vineennes,  and  the  Waterwitch,  order-boat.  Every 
outlet  was  thus  effectually  closed  by  a  fleet  which  had  no  fear 
of  stormy  weather.  In  order  to  disperse  that  fleet  the  Confed- 
erates determined  to  cover  with  sheathing  (6/mc?er),  on  the  plan 
of  those  floating-batteries  tried  in  1855  in  the  attack  on  Kinburn, 
a  vessel  which  should  defy  the  Federal  artillery.  Captain  Hol- 
lins,  a  former  officer  of  the  regular  navy,  was  entrusted  with  the 
task  of  thus  transforming  a  high-pressure  steamer  witli  double 
engines  which  lay  in  the  port  of  New  Orleans.     The  deck  was 


438  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

cut  away  and  replaced  by  an  iron-plated  roof,  into  which  were 
introduced  a  few  port-holes.  The  bow  was  remodelled  above  the 
water-line,  and  so  shaped  as  to  leave  room  for  a  gun  firing  point 
blank,  while  below  the  water-line  she  was  armed  with  a  powerful 
iron  spike.  This  vessel,  called  the  Manassas,  was  to  serve  as  a 
model  to  the  famous  Merrimac,  of  which  we  shall  soon  have  to 
speak.  A  flotilla  of  seven  small  armed  steamers  was  collected  to 
support  her  operations. 

Hollins  had  been  for  some  days  Avatching  the  movements  of 
the  Federals,  who  were  beginning  to  lose  faith  in  the  existence  of 
that  Manassas  which  had  been  so  long  talked  about.  Finally, 
on  the  12th  of  October,  taking  advantage  of  a  very  dark  night, 
he  moved  oif.  The  Manassas  led  the  way  with  all  her  port-holes 
carefully  closed ;  having  no  masts  and  presenting  only  a  low  back, 
she  glided  upon  the  water  like  a  marine  monster.  The  fleet,  fol- 
lowing at  a  considerable  distance,  had  some  fire-ships  in  tow,  with 
orders  to  launch  them  as  soon  as  a  rocket  from  the  Manassas 
should  announce  the  commencement  of  the  battle.  Hollins's 
ram  arrived  unperceived  at  the  THe-des-Passes  in  the  midst  of 
the  Federal  vessels.  Passing  close  to  the  Preble  too  rapidly  to 
damage  her  with  the  spike,  she  directed  her  course  towards  the 
Richmond,  then  in  the  act  of  taking  in  coal  from  a  brig  grap- 
pled alongside  of  her ;  a  moment  after,  she  struck  the  side  of  that 
sloop,  causing  a  leak  of  no  great  accouut  below  the  water-line, 
shattering  everything  on  board,  and  breaking  the  fastenings  of  the 
brig,  which  was  carried  oif  by  the  current.  This  was  the  time 
for  the  Manassas  to  try  and  sink  her  adversary  by  another  stroke; 
but  the  first  shock  had  deranged  her  engine,  and,  before  it  could 
be  put  in  order,  she  had  drifted  to  leeward,  while  the  Richmond, 
breaking  off  from  her  moorings  and  quickly  tacking  (virant  a 
bard),  was  ready  for  battle.  This  vessel  opened  fire,  but  her  pro- 
jectiles and  those  of  the  Preble  could  make  no  impression  upon 
the  sheathing  of  the  Confederate  ram.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
fleet  which  accompanied  the  fire-ships,  having  noticed  the  signal 
agreed  upon,  advanced  towards  the  scene  of  action,  and  moving 
fires  soon  lighted  up  the  tall  trees  which  skirted  the  river,  threat- 
ening the  Federal  squadron  with  a  new  danger.  That  danger, 
however,  was  more  apparent  than  real,  for  the  Confederate  steam- 


PORT  ROYAL.  439 

ers,  kept  at.  a  distance  by  the  heavy  guns  of  the  Richmond,  could 
not  direct  the  movements  of  the  fire-ships ;  the  Manassas  had 
gone  up  the  river  and  disappeared.  But  it  was  difficult  for  a 
long  sloop  like  the  Richmond  to  come  about  in  so  narro^y  a  strait 
as  the  south-west  pass,  and  her  commander,  Pope,  doubting  his 
ability  to  make  her  head  the  current  again,  gave  the  signal  for 
the  three  other  vessels  to  retire  beyond  the  bar.  The  fire-ships 
soon  ran  aground,  with  the  coaling-brig,  which  had  been  separated 
from  the  Richmond;  and  the  flotilla  of  Hollins  followed  the 
enemy  at  a  distance.  Everything  seemed  to  be  in  his  favor ;  the 
Preble  ran  aground  on  nearing  the  bar,  and  was  almost  thrown 
on  her  beam-ends,  while  the  Richmond  was  stranded  a  little  lower 
down ;  and  if  Hollins  had  been  bolder,  he  could  probably  have 
destroyed  both  vessels.  Fortunately,  the  Richmond,  her  broad- 
side facing  the  enemy's  ships,  was  able  to  keep  them  at  a  distance 
with  her  guns.  The  commander  of  the  Preble  had  abandoned  his 
ship  with  unseemly  haste,  but  by  a  lucky  chance  the  match  he 
applied  to  the  powder  magazine  was  extinguished  some  minutes 
before  causing  an  explosion,  and  the  Confederates,  giving  up  the 
game  at  the  decisive  moment,  withdrew  without  doing  aaght  to 
secure  the  victory.  The  Richmond  was  speedily  got  off;  the  crew 
of  the  Preble  again  got  on  board,  and  succeeded  in  raising  her. 
The  damages  sustained  by  the  Federal  squadron  were  promptly 
repaired,  and  it  resumed  its  place  at  the  TMe-des-Passes,  while 
Hollins  was  pompously  announcing  a  victory,  the  worthlessness 
of  which  was  soon  felt  by  the  inhabitants  of  New  Orleans,  for 
the  blockade  continued  in  force  as  strictly  as  before. 

A  few  weeks  after,  upon  another  point  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
at  Galveston,  in  Texas,  the  Federals  by  a  bold  stroke  destroyed 
one  of  the  vessels  which  the  Confederates  were  preparing  to  break 
the  blockade.  During  the  night  of  November  7th  two.  armed 
launches  were  sent  by  the  frigate  Santee,  stationed  outside  of  Gal- 
veston, to  attack  the  steamer  General  Rusk,  which  was  being  fitted 
out  for  war  purposes.  The  boats  entered  the  port ;  but  being  dis- 
covered, they  abandoned  their  original  intention,  seized  the  schooner 
Royal  Yacht,  which  was  also  armed  as  a  privateer,  and  were  able 
to  set  her  on  fire  before  leaving.  This  expedition,  which  gave  the 
Federal  navy  a  fe^»  prisoners,  cost  them  seven  men. 


440  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

At  the  same  period,  the  9th  of  November,  a  slight  engage- 
ment took  place  in  the  estuary  of  the  Rappahannock.  A  Federal 
transport-ship  having  run  aground  at  Corrotowan  Creek,  the  Con- 
federates were  going  to  seize  her,  when  a  detachment  from  the 
cruiser  Carabridge  set  her  on  fire,  after  exchanging  a  few  shots 
with  the  enemy.  On  the  following  day  the  same  Federal  cruiser 
bombarded  the  town  of  Urbanna,  which  served  as  a  depot  for  the 
contraband  trade  with  Maryland. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederates  had  armed  the  Patrick 
Henry  on  the  James  River,  a  steamer  which  formerly  plied  in 
Chesapeake  Bay,  and  of  which  they  had  taken  possession.  On 
the  2d  of  December  they  wished  to  try  her  strength  against  the 
small  vessels  which  came  up  the  James  from  the  anchoring- 
grounds  at  Newport  News  to  make  reconnaissances.  But  those 
vessels  having  fallen  back  at  her  approach  on  the  large  ships  at 
anchor  in  the  harbor,  the  Patrick  Henry  only  exchanged  a  few 
cannon-shots  with  them,  and  then  disappeared  without  making 
any  further  demonstration.  A  few  weeks  after,  the  Confederates 
were  more  fortunate.  Captain  Lynch,  formerly  an  officer  in  the 
Federal  navy,  who  had  acquired  some  distinction  before  the  war 
by  his  hydrographical  exploration  of  the  Dead  Sea,  had  been 
placed  in  command  of  a  small  steamer,  the  Sea-Bird,  carrying 
two  guns,  which  was  then  at  Norfolk.  He  was  to  take  her  by 
way  of  the  Albemarle  Canal  into  the  inland  waters  of  South 
Carolina,  in  order  to  watch  the  Federals  stationed  at  Hatteras. 
The  condition  of  the  canal  having  delayed  his  passage,  he  went 
to  take  position  near  the  Sewall's  Point  batteries,  erected  at  the 
entrance  of  James  River,  fronting  those  of  Fortress  Monroe,  but 
out  of  reach  of  the  latter.  Being  always  on  the  watch  and  in 
search  of  opportunities  to  surprise  the  enemy,  he  perceived,  on 
the  29th  of  December,  a  Federal  steamer  towing  a  schooner 
which  was  carrying  drinking-water  to  the  garrison  of  Fortr(!SS 
Monroe,  the  sandy  soil  of  the  Virginia  peninsula  furnishing  but 
a  small  supply  of  that  article.  Starting  with  a  full  head  of  steam 
in  pursuit,  he  compelled  the  Federal  steamer  to  cast  the  schooner 
loose,  took  possession  of  her,  and  brought  her  back  under  shel- 
ter of  the  Confederate  batteries,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Mdiole 
Federal  fleet,  which  chased  him  in  vain,  and  Avas  finally  com- 


PORT  ROYAL.  441 

pelled  to  give  up  the  pursuit  among  the  shallow  waters  in  the 
vicinity  of  Sewall's  Point. 

We  shall  close  this  somewhat  monotonous  sketch  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  blockade  in  1861  with  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of 
an  enterprise  which  must  be  classed  in  the  same  category,  although 
of  a  very  peculiar  character.  We  allude  to  the  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  Federals  to  place  obstructions  in  the  harbor  of  Charles- 
ton— a  fruitless  attempt,  which  had  no  other  result  than  to  pro- 
voke the  most  severe  criticisms  from  the  English  press.  As  we 
shall  show  hereafter,  the  Federal  fleet  had  taken  possession  of 
Port  E,oyal,  an  important  position  on  the  coast  of  South  Carolina, 
between  Savannah  and  Charleston.  But  notwithstandino:  the 
facilities  which  that  station  offered,  the  fleet  found  it  very  diffi- 
cult to  maintain  the  blockade  of  Charleston  in  an  effective  man- 
ner. That  port  had  become  the  principal  focus  of  the  contraband 
trade  with  Europe,  because  it  was  the  best  situated  for  distributing 
the  commodities  brought  over  by  the  blockade-runners  through  all 
the  Confederate  States,  and  because  the  configuration  of  its  entrance 
afforded  to  such  vessels  great  chances  of  eluding  the  blockade.  It 
forms,  in  fact,  a  vast  basin,  the  entrance  of  which  was  commanded  by 
the  batteries  of  Moultrie  and  Cumming's  Point  on  either  side,  and 
by  the  guns  of  Fort  Sumter,  occupying  a  small  island  in  the  bay. 
Outside  of  this  strait  the  sea  is  not  open,  and  not  far  off  lies  a 
large  sand-bank,  always  covered,  extending  in  a  line  parallel  to 
the  coast  southward  to  a  distance  of  nine  kilometres.  It  joins 
the  coast  to  the  north,  near  which  there  are  three  outlets,  or  nar- 
row passes,  only  practicable  fcjr  vessels  of  small  size.  The  prin- 
cipal channel  bends  to  the  south  after  passing  the  narrow  en- 
trance, and  runs  between  the  coast  and  the  bank.  At  the  ex- 
treme point  of  this  bank  the  shock  of  the  ebb  and  flow  has 
formed  a  bar  across  the  cliannel,  which  presents  only  an  elevation 
of  five  metres  and  a  half  at  high  water.  The  intervening  spa<!e 
between  the  bank  and  the  narrow  entrance  being  entirely  com- 
manded by  the  Confederate  guns,  the  Federal  cruisers  were 
obliged  to  keep  outside  the  bank,  and  to  watch  the  entrance  of 
all  the  passes  from  a  distance  over  an  extent  of  coast  of  more  than 
ten  kilometres.  It  will  be  seen  how  difficult  it  was  to  prevent  a 
swift  vessel  from  forcing  that  line  in  the  middle  of  a  dark  night. 


442  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Consequently,  the  naval  authorities  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  would  be  easier  to  obstruct  the  principal  channel,  and  thus  get 
rid  of  a  task  which  was  not  only  irksome,  but  uncertain.  It  was 
determined  to  sink  a  certain  number  of  old  ships,  loaded  with 
stones,  on  the  bar,  which  would  render  the  passage  absolutely  im- 
possible. This  was  to  apply  to  an  enemy's  port  what  the  Rus- 
sians had  done  for  their  own  defence  at  Sebastopol ;  and  if  the  ex- 
periment should  prove  successful,  it  was  proposed  to  repeat  it  in 
front  of  Savannah  and  the  other  Confederate  ports.  Towards  the 
middle  of  December  twenty-five  whaling-ships  of  from  three  to 
five  hundred  tons  each  were  assembled  at  Port  Royal.  They 
were  loaded  with  large  blocks  of  stone,  and  their  sides  pierced 
with  openings  which  only  required  to  be  unstopped  to  sink  them. 
Sixteen  of  these  set  sail.  They  were  escorted  by  a  few  steamers, 
whose  purpose  was  to  eifect  the  submersion  of  these  old  hulks  and 
to  receive  their  crews.  On  the  17th  of  December  the  fleet  ap- 
peared before  Charleston.  A  great  disaster  had  just  struck  that 
city :  more  than  half  of  it  had  been  destroyed  by  fire ;  and  the 
inhabitants  were  still  wandering  among  the  smoking  ruins,  when 
Fort  Sumter  signalled  the  approach  of  the  vessels,  the  destination 
of  which  was  unknown,  and  which  seemed  to  be  preparing  a  very 
determined  attack.  A  different  kind  of  spectacle  was  in  store  for 
them ;  and  during  two  days  they  were  doomed  to  witness,  from 
too  great  a  distance  to  interrupt  the  process,  an  operation  which 
threatened  to  close  the  entrance  of  their  port  to  all  blockade- 
runners.  The  sixteen  ships  were  sunk  at  certain  distances  from 
each  other,  in  two  lines,  arranged  like  a  chess-board,  so  as  to 
leave  openings  for  the  tide-currents,  without,  however,  allowing  a 
direct  passage  for  vessels  M^hich  might  attempt  to  steer  among 
those  artificial  reefs.  As  soon  as  the  hulks  were  all  submerged 
their  masts  were  sawed  off  to  the  water's  edge,  and  their  crews 
returned  to  Port  Royal,  persuaded  that  they  should  no  longer  be 
put  to  the  trouble  of  blockading  the  port  which  had  witnessed  the 
birth  of  secession.  The  American  journals,  by  means  of  bombastic 
announcements  that  "  Charleston  had  ceased  to  be  a  port  of  entry, 
and  that  the  bride  of  the  West  was  henceforth  widowed  of  her 
husband  the  Atlantic,"  succeeded  in  making  the  public  believe 
that  a  terrible  and  irreparable  chastisement  had  been  inflicted 


PORT  ROYAL.  443 

upou  that  rebel  city.  England  was  greatly  moved  by  the  occur- 
rence, aiid  her  government  caused  representations  on  the  subject 
to  be  made  at  Washington.  This  was  showing  a  little  more 
haste  than  was  proper ;  for  if  the  Federal  government  had  tres- 
passed against  the  law  of  nations,  it  had  only  done  so  through 
intent.  The  obstruction,  which  was  only  designed  to  be  tem- 
porary, was  even  of  much  shorter  duration  than  had  been  anti- 
cipated ;  the  hulks  were  broken  to  pieces  by  the  force  of  the  sea ; 
the  stones  sank  deep  into  the  sand ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  few  weeks 
the  entrance  to  Charleston  was  reopened  by  nature. 

The  third  part  of  the  task  imposed  upon  the  Federal  navy — 
the  forcible  occupation  of  certain  points  on  the  enemy's  coast — 
was  the  most  important,  and  offers  a  more  interesting  subject. 
This  occupation  had  both  a  political  and  military  object  in  view. 
On  one  hand,  it  greatly  facilitated  the  revictualling  of  the  block- 
ading squadrons;  it  diminished  the  number  of  hostile  ports  to  be 
watched ;  it  substituted  a  land  siege  for  the  maritime  blockade ; 
and  it  secured  a  base  of  operations  for  the  army  on  the  day  when 
it  should  attempt  to  })enetrate  into  the  interior  of  the  Confeder- 
acy by  this  method.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Washington  gov- 
ernment, in  gaining  a  foothold  by  this  means  upon  the  soil  of 
those  States  which  it  could  not  reach  by  land,  was  in  hopes  of  re- 
awakening some  sympathy  for  the  national  flag,  and  desirous  to 
establish  a  rallying-point  for  the  Unionists  of  the  South. 

The  extent  of  tlie  coast  of  the  insurgent  States,  the  multitude 
of  points  at  which  large  vessels  could  make  land,  and  the  deep 
channels  where  they  found  a  safe  anchorage  were  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  blockade,  but  they  were  favorable  for  landing.  Not  being 
able  to  maintain  a  defensive  attitude  everywhere,  the  Confederates 
were  always  liable  to  be  surprised  at  some  point. 

The  Federal  navy  began  to  prepare  for  its  combined  expedi- 
tions by  land  and  sea  in  the  month  of  August.  The  chief  merit 
of  their  conception  and  organization  was  due  to  Mr.  Gustavus 
Fox,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  who  had  already  distin- 
guished himself  at  a  critical  moment  by  attempting  to  revictual 
Fort  Sumter.  For  four  years  his  ardent  mind,  practical  and  full 
of  resources,  effectively  controlled  the  department,  and  at  the  ex- 
piration of  those  memorable  four  years  he  retired  without  aspir- 


444  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ing  to  any  other  reward  than  the  satisfaction  of  having  served 
his  country  well.  In  the  early  part  of  August  there  arrived  at 
Fortress  Monroe  the  captain  of  a  merchant- vessel  who  had  been 
wrecked  near  Cape  Hatteras,  on  the  coast  of  North  Carolina. 
Mr.  Campbell,  having  been  kept  three  months  a  prisoner  in  those 
parts,  brought  with  him  some  exact  information  relative  to  the 
contraband  trade  carried  on  there  and  the  preparations  for  de- 
fence on  the  part  of  the  Confederates. 

Between  the  ocean  and  the  deeply  indented  coast  of  North  Car- 
olina stretches  a  narrow  tongue  of  sand,  which  describes  a  convex 
arc  and  envelops  a  vast  sheet  of  water.  This  inland  sea,  called 
Pamlico  Sound,  which  resembles,  on  a  larger  scale,  the  lagoons  of 
Venice,  is  almost  everywhere  navigable  for  vessels  of  considerable 
size.  It  is  interspersed  with  numerous  islands,  the  largest  of 
which,  Roanoke  Island,  divides  it  into  two  unequal  parts ;  the 
southern  portion,  designated  as  Pamlico  Sound  proper,  presents 
the  larger  surface ;  the  sheet  lying  northward  is  known  by  the 
name  of  Albemarle  Sound.  This  tongue  of  sand  is  intersected 
at  intervals  by  difficult  inlets  resembling  those  of  Lido  and  Mal- 
amocco ;  at  the  highest  point  of  the  arc  which  it  describes  lies 
Cape  Hatteras,  and  a  little  farther  to  the  south  the  inlet  of  the 
same  name.  This  inlet  was  very  much  frequented  by  the  block- 
ade-runners, who  found  in  the  sounds  the  means  of  holding  safe 
communications  with  all  parts  of  North  Carolina.  It  was  de- 
fended by  a  large  field-work  of  octagonal  shape,  situated  on  the 
north  side  of  the  entrance,  near  the  inland  basin,  and  conse- 
quently at  some  distance  from  the  spot  where  it  debouches  into 
the  open  sea.  This  work,  called  Fort  Hatteras,  was  built  of 
sand ;  it  had  a  considerable  relief,  magazines,  and  bomb-proof 
shelters;  and  its  armament,  which  was  still  incomplete  at  the  end 
of  August,  consisted  of  ten  navy  guns,  thirty-two  pounders.  The 
approach  by  land  was  rendered  extremely  difficult  by  a  swamp. 
In  order  to  cover  the  entrance  of  the  inlet  on  the  side  of  the  open 
sea  the  Confederates  had  erected  on  the  shore,  at  a  distance  of 
seven  hundred  metres  to  the  north-east  of  Fort  Hatteras,  a  square 
redoubt,  called  Fort  Clark,  mounting  five  guns.  A  little  farther 
on  two  field-pieces  were  posted  in  an  epaulement  designed  to  pre- 
vent a  landing.     These  works  were  occupied  by  about  one  thou- 


PORT  ROYAL.  445 

sand  men,  two  or  three  hundred  of  whom  were  under  Major  An- 
drews, the  commander  of  the  forts ;  the  rest,  under  Colonel  Mar- 
tin, consisted  of  the  Seventh  North  Carolina  regiment.  The  en- 
tire control  of  the  maritime  defences  of  the  State  was  entrusted 
to  Commodore  Barron.  These  three  commanders  did  not  agree ; 
the  soldiers  were  inexperienced,  the  artillery  of  too  small  a  cal- 
ibre, and  poorly  supplied ;  for  the  want  of  fuses  to  fire  the  shells 
it  was  necessary  to  fill  them  with  sand.  But  the  works  were 
strong,  and  the  heavy  swell  of  the  Atlantic  made  it  dangerous  to 
attempt  a  landing.  The  Washington  government  decided  to  send 
a  combined  expedition  to  destroy  these  works  and  to  obstruct  the 
Hatteras  Inlet  by  sinking  a  few  old  hulks  in  it.  To  accomplish 
this  object  the  frigate  Ifinnesota,  the  sloops-of-war  Wabash  and 
Pawnee,  and  the  advice-boat  Harriet  Lane  repaired  to  Newport 
News,  under  command  of  Commodore  Stringham.  These  vessels 
were  to  be  joined  by  the  frigate  Susquehanna  and  the  sailing  sloop- 
of-war  Cumberland.  At  the  same  time,  General  Butler,  who  had 
been  superseded  by  General  Wool,  but  who  still  retained  command 
of  the  forces  encamped  at  Newport  News,  embarked  with  nine 
hundred  men  on  two  large  steamers  and  an  advice-boat.  The 
combined  squadron  got  under  way  on  the  26th  of  August,  and  on 
the  following  day  anchored  in  deep  water  in  sight  of  Hatteras 
Inlet. 

Operations  commenced  on  the  morning  of  the  28th ;  while  the 
fleet  was  bombarding  Fort  Clark  preparations  were  hastened  for 
landing.  The  heavy  naval  artillery  soon  established  its  superi- 
ority over  the  five  guns  of  inferior  calibre  which  constituted  the 
armament  of  the  redoubt.  The  Federal  frigates,  steaming  slowly 
in  front  of  that  work,  poured  shells  into  it,  and  soon  silenced  its 
fire.  Fort  Hatteras  tried  in  vain  to  reach  them  ;  the  distance  was 
too  great  for  its  thirty-two  pounders.  The  bombardment  had 
commenced  at  ten  o'clock;  towards  half-past  twelve  the  two 
works  had  ceased  firing ;  their  flags  had  been  lowered ;  and  the 
defenders  of  Fort  Clark,  escaping  in  small  squads,  went,  without 
orders,  to  seek  refuge  behind  the  parapets  of  Hatteras.  In  the 
mean  time,  a  portion  of  the  troops  which  the  fleet  had  brought 
over  effected  a  landing,  notwithstanding  the  serious  difficulties 
they  had  to  encounter.     To  accomplish  this  disembarkation  they 


446  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  only  two  wooden  lighters  and  three  or  four  iron  launches 
On  the  first  trip  the  sea  shattered  the  former  and  capsized  the 
latter ;  the  men  came  near  being  drow^ned ;  the  ammunition  and 
provisions  were  soaked  with  water ;  and  as  the  swell  was  rapidly 
increasing,  it  soon  became  necessary  to  suspend  the  operation. 
Three  hundred  men,  with  two  small  howitzers  and  only  a  few 
rounds  of  ammunition,  thus  found  themselves  alone  on  a  hostile 
shore,  separated  from  the  fleet  by  an  impassable  barrier  of  break- 
ers, with  the  enemy  in  front,  who,  being  four  times  stronger  than 
themselves  and  firmly  entrenched  inside  of  his  works,  could  have 
driven  them  into  the  sea.  Fortunately,  their  commander.  Colonel 
Max  Weber,  was  not  at  all  disconcerted ;  and  marching  boldly 
forward,  he  took  possession  of  Fort  Clark,  which  the  Confederates 
had  just  evacuated.  He  was  not,  however,  able  to  hold  it ;  hav- 
ing tried  to  take  possession  of  the  other  work,  he  was  repulsed 
and  dislodged  from  the  first,  which  remained  unoccupied  between 
the  two  contending  parties.  Two  Federal  vessels,  which  attempted 
to  run  into  the  inlets,  were  also  compelled  to  retire  before  the  fire 
of  Fort  Hatteras,  after  having  run  aground  several  times.  Finally, 
a  steamer  which  was  bringing  reinforcements  to  the  Confederates 
made  her  appearance  in  the  inland  sound.  The  weather  was 
growing  worse,  the  north  wind  rising,  the  sea  was  becoming 
violently  agitated,  and  all  the  Federal  vessels  were  obliged  to 
haul  off  from  the  coast  towards  nightfall — a  night  full  of  anxiety 
to  every  one,  and  especially  to  the  troops  disembarked  on  that 
gloomy  shore. 

Fortunately  for  the  latter,  the  Confederates  themselves  were  in 
a  great  state  of  confusion.  Commodore  Barron  had  arrived  with 
insignificant  reinforcements ;  a  vessel  which  was  to  have  brought 
a  regiment  from  Newbern  had  not  made  her  appearance.  The 
power  of  the  projectiles  used  by  the  Federals,  and  the  capture  of 
Fort  Clark,  although  evacuated  afterwards,  had  greatly  disturbed 
the  defenders  of  Hatteras.  The  gunners  were  inexperienced,  and 
there  were  only  three  pieces  of  artillery  in  the  fort  which  could 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  entrance  of  the  pass.  The  Confed- 
erates had  no  intention  of  troubling  Weber  during  the  night. 
When  day  reappeared,  the  sea  was  calm  ;  and  the  Federal  fleet, 
bringing  their  broadsides  to  bear  upon  the  fort,  began  to  bombard 


PORT  ROYAL.  447 

it.  The  guns  of  the  fort  were  speedily  silenced  and  the  garrison 
obliged  to  take  refuge  in  the  casemates.  Weber's  troops  took  ad- 
vantage of  this  to  reoccupy  Fort  Clark,  and  to  turn  the  fire  of 
two  or  three  field-pieces  upon  the  Confederate  steamer  which  was 
at  last  bringing  the  reinforcements  from  Newbern,  but  had  not 
yet  been  able  to  land  them.  Seeing  that  vessel  put  back,  while 
the  Federal  fleet  was  preparing  to  cross  the  inlet,  the  besieged 
became  discouraged.  They  had  only,  however,  about  thirty  men 
wounded,  the  casemates  were  in  excellent  condition,  and  the 
weather,  which  had  again  assumed  a  threatening  aspect,  might  at 
any  moment  interrupt  the  attack  and  deliver  into  their  hands 
Weber's  three  hundred  Federals.  Notwithstandino;  all  these 
chances  in  their  favor,  Commodore  Barron,  at  eleven  o'clock, 
hoisted  the  white  flag.  Cut  off  by  Fort  Clark  from  all  commu- 
nication with  the  land,  he  had  no  means  of  escape  left.  More 
than  seven  hundred  prisoners,  twenty-five  pieces  of  artillery,  with 
or  without  carriages,  and  two  strong  works,  were  surrendered  to 
the  Federals  by  the  capitulation,  signed  a  few  days  after.  Butler 
and  Stringham,  appreciating  the  importance  of  their  conquest,  de- 
termined not  to  abandon  it.  The  small  garrisons  which  they  left 
there  were  soon  reinforced,  and  Hatteras  became  the  base  of  naval 
and  military  operations  along  the  whole  coast  of  North  Carolina. 
The  capture  of  these  forts,  which  had  not  cost  the  Federals  a  sin- 
gle man,  was  one  of  those  unquestionable  successes  of  which  until 
then  Fortune  had  been  very  sparing  towards  the  North.  It  was 
the  first  step  in  a  direction  Avhere  many  others  still  more  decisive 
were  to  follow.  The  superiority  of  the  guns  on  board  the  Fed- 
eral vessels  over  the  barbette  batteries  which  the  Confederates  op- 
posed to  them  was  clearly  shown.  This  first  experience  was 
destined  to  receive  many  confirmations  afterwards. 

The  chronological  order  of  our  narrative  compels  us  to  take  the 
reader  back  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  along  whose  coast  the  Federals 
endeavored  during  the  autumn,  by  means  of  certain  operations,  to 
Btrengthen  the  naval  blockade.  We  have  stated  elscAvhere  that 
Fort  Pickens,  which  guards  the  entrance  of  Pensacola  Bay,  had 
remained  in  their  possession  at  the  time  when  the  rebellion  broke 
out.  The  position  of  this  post  rendered  it  easy  for  them  to  block- 
ade one  of  the  best  ports  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.     But  they  had 


448  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA.    . 

left  a  large  arsenal  in  the  hands  of  their  adversaries,  where  pri« 
vateers  were  fitted  out  which  occasionally  succeeded  in  eluding 
the  vigilance  of  the  sentinels  of  Fort  Pickens.  They  attempted 
in  vain,  on  the  2d  of  September,  to  set  it  on  fire,  and  only  suc- 
ceeded in  destroying  one  of  the  stocks  for  ship-building.  They 
soon  returned  to  the  charge.  During  the  night  of  the  13th  or 
14th  of  September  four  boats  belonging  to  the  frigate  Colorado 
proceeded  as  far  as  the  dock  of  the  arsenal,  at  which  the  Con- 
federate schooner  Judah  was  moored.  They  seized  her  by  quick 
assault,  set  her  on  fire,  and  retired  after  having  lost  four  men 
killed  and  nine  wounded. 

This  successful  attempt  alarmed  the  Confederates,  and  they 
immediately  set  to  work  to  harass  the  garrison  of  Fort  Pickens. 
On  the  coast  of  Florida,  eastward  of  Pensacola,  there  lies  a  narrow 
and  sandy  island,  eighty  kilometres  in  length,  formed  of  downs 
shaped  like  those  of  Hatteras,  and  only  separated  from  the  main- 
•  land  by  a  sinuous  channel  of  from  one  to  two  kilometres  in  width. 
This  island,  called  Santa  Rosa,  stretches  in  front  of  the  entrance 
of  Pensacola  Bay ;  and  at  the  extremity  of  this  natural  break- 
water stands  Fort  Pickens.  Outside  the  fort  the  Federals  occu- 
pied that  portion  of  the  island  which  lies  nearest  to  it.  During 
the  summer  a  New  York  regiment,  Wilson's  Zouaves,  had  been 
landed  there.  Their  unruly  disposition  had  caused  them  to  be 
designated  for  that  mission,  which  had  the  advantage  of  isolating 
them  completely.  This  regiment,  reduced  to  three  hundred  and 
sixty  men,  of  whom  more  than  fifty  were  on  the  sick-list,  was  en- 
camped about  two  kilometres  from  the  fort,  at  a  point  where  the 
island,  closely  shut  in  between  the  sea  and  Pensacola  Bay,  is  only 
one  kilometre  wide.  If  the  superior  officers  may  be  judged  by 
the  boastful  extravagance  of  their  reports,  that  regiment  must 
have  been  very  badly  commanded.  At  all  events,  their  encamp- 
ment was  very  carelessly  guarded.  The  Confederates  knew  this, 
and  they  determined  to  take  advantage  of  it  to  attempt  a  coiip- 
de-main,  which  they  would  never  have  thought  of  if  they  had  had 
to  deal  with  well-disciplined  troops. 

During  the  night  of  October  8th  and  9th,  General  Anderson 
brought  from  Pensacola,  in  steamers  and  large  boats,  twelve  or 
thirteen  hundred  men,  whom  he  landed  five  kilometres  east  of  the 


PORT  ROYAL.  449 

Federal  camp  fronling  the  centre  of  the  bay.  The  sand-hills  of 
Santa  Rosa  island  stretch  out  in  that  locality,  and  afforded  him 
a  more  favorable  ground  for  deploying  his  troops.  As  soon 
as  they  were  landed  he  formed  them  into  three  columns,  which 
advanced  in  silence,  capturing  the  Federal  sentinels,  who  were 
posted  too  near  their  camp.  An  instant  afterwards  the  camp 
itself  was  seized,  pillaged,  and  set  on  fire.  It  was  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning ;  the  darkness  was  intense,  and  the  flames  ris- 
ing among  the  tents  and  spreading  here  and  there  only  served 
to  increase  the  disorder  caused  by  that  surprise.  The  scattered 
zouaves  rallied  in  detached  groups  between  their  camp  and  the  fort ; 
their  adversaries,  equally  disorganized  by  the  pillage,  hunted  for 
them  at  random,  without  following  up  their  success.  The  reports 
of  firearms  were  heard  in  every  direction ;  and  the  soldier  who 
fell,  shot  down  at  close  quarters,  could  not  tell  whether  he  had 
been  struck  by  friend  or  foe.  On  hearing  the  noise  of  battle, 
Colonel  Brown,  who  was  in  command  at  Fort  Pickens,  sent  Major 
Vogdes  with  two  companies  of  regular  infantry  to  Wilson's 
assistance.  The  major  missed  his  way  and  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Confederates,  but  the  regulars  sustained  themselves  in  that 
difficult  ordeal  of  a  night  battle,  resolutely  advanced  in  serried 
ranks  upon  the  flank  of  their  assailants,  who  had  already  driven 
the  zouaves  to  the  sea,  and  changed  the  aspect  of  the  fight.  The 
Confederates,  becoming  frightened  in  their  turn,  soon  took  to  flight 
to  regain  their  boats,  into  which  they  crowded  in  haste,  leaving 
behind  them  about  twenty  killed,  thirty  prisoners,  and  a  consider- 
able number  of  wounded ;  they  finally  reached  the  main  land  at 
the  moment  when  a  small  Federal  steamer  from  Fort  Pickens 
was  about  to  cut  off"  their  retreat.  The  Wilson  Zouaves  had  not 
fought  well  enough  to  lose  many  men,  and  out  of  thirty-seven 
Federals,  ^vho  were  wounded  in  that  engagement,  twenty-four  be- 
longed to  the  regular  army. 

The  attack  of  the  Confederates  had  been  repulsed,  but  it  con- 
vinced Colonel  Brown  that  in  the  event  of  a  serious  attack  he 
could  only  rely  upon  the  small  garrison  of  the  fort  for  defence. 
In  order  to  prevent  similar  attempts  in  futureyhe  resolved  to  take 
the  offensive ;  and  as  his  soldiers  were  too  few  in  number  to  make 
a  sortie,  it  was  necessary  that  the  fort  itself  should  take  part  in 

Vol.  I.— 29 


450  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  combat.  Secession,  as  we  have  stated,  had  divided  the  line 
of  defences  at  Pensacola  into  two  parts,  giving  Fort  Mv'Rae,  on 
the  west  side  of  the  inlet,  to  the  Confederates,  and  leaving  Fort 
Pickens,  on  the  east  side,  in  possession  of  the  Federals.  These  two 
forts — guardians  of  the  harbor — constructed  with  a  view  to  their 
mutual  support,  belonged  therefore  to  tlie  two  hostile  parties,  and 
levelled  their  guns  against  each  other.  They  thus  prevented  any 
vessel,  whatever  might  be  her  flag,  from  entering  the  bay,  but  by 
a  tacit  agreement  they  long  continued  to  exercise  a  mutual  forbear- 
ance towards  each  other.  Colonel  Brown  wished  to  get  out  of  this 
embarrassing  position,  which  gave  all  the  advantage  to  his  oppo- 
nents, allowing  them  to  make  free  use  of  the  vast  resources  which 
the  arsenal  of  Pensacola  afforded  them.  The  frigate  Niagara  and 
the  sloop-of-war  Richmond,  charged  with  the  blockade  on  the 
Florida  coast,  took  part  in  the  bombardment,  which  was  opened 
by  Fort  Pickens  on  the  morning  of  November  22d.  Fort  McRae 
replied,  and  was  supported  by  the  fire  of  several  field-batteries 
erected  in  the  vicinity  of  the  arsenal.  The  cannonading  was  thus 
kept  up  for  two  days  without  producing  any  result.  There  were 
twelve  or  fifteen  men  disabled  on  both  sides.  The  vessels  were 
only  struck  three  or  four  times,  and  the  Richmond  alone  seriously, 
while  Fort  Pickens  had  only  one  gun  dismounted.  On  the  Con- 
federate side  a  few  field-pieces  were  rendered  useless ;  the  village 
of  Warrenton  and  a  few  huts  were  burnt ;  the  arsenal  only  sus- 
tained trifling  injuries,  and  the  three  steamers  which  happened 
to  be  there  escaped  without  serious  damage.  This  duel  between 
two  permanent  works,  which  left  both  of  them  uninjured,  is  a 
unique  occurrence  in  the  contemj^oraneous  annals  of  sieges.  Al- 
though they  were  only  two  kilometres  apart,  neither  of  them  was 
able  to  effect  a  breach  in  the  works  of  its  opponent ;  the  fire  of  the 
ships  was  not  more  effective ;  the  large  spherical  shells  so  effective 
against  barbette  batteries  were  powerless  against  masonry.  The 
only  piece  of  artillery  which  did  any  damage  to  the  Confederates 
was  a  thirty-pounder  Parrott  gun  mounted  on  Fort  Pickens. 

More  to  the  west,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  about  the  same 
time,  the  Federals  seized  an  island  almost  deserted,  flat,  sandy, 
M"ind-swept,  and  parched  by  a  tropical  sun,  but  affording  excel- 
lent anchorage  for  their  squadrons,  and  an  important  point  for 


PORT  ROYAL.  451 

revietiialling.  This  was  Ship  Island,  situated  on  the  coast  north 
of  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  and  in  continuation  of  that 
long  chain  parallel  to  the  coast  to  which  Santa  Rosa  belongs. 
The  Confederates,  who  occupied  it  and  had  even  made  certain 
establisliments  on  it,  abandoned  it  on  the  18th  of  September, 
on  the  approach  of  a  few  Federal  vessels.  It  remained  at 
first  without  an  occupant;  subsequently,  the  blockading  fleet 
went  there  in  search  of  temporary  shelter;  a  detachment  of 
marines  was  landed  and  lodged,  with  supplies,  in  a  fort  yet  unfin- 
ished. Finally,  towards  the  latter  part  pf  November  a  brigade 
of  seventeen  or  eighteen  hundred  men  from  Fort  Monroe,  under 
General  Phelps,  took  permanent  possession  of  the  island,  and  the 
troops  were  landed  in  that  dismal  locality  between  the  4th  and 
6th  of  December.  Apart  from  the  military  object  of  that  expe- 
dition, the  Federal  government  had  a  political  end  in  view.  The 
occupation  of  Ship  Island  gave  the  government  a  foothold  on 
the  State  of  Mississippi ;  it  was  the  first  step  in  taking  posses- 
sion. Consequently,  in  again  hoisting  the  Federal  flag  upon  the 
soil  of  that  rebel  State,  General  Phelps  did  not  fail  to  issue  a 
proclamation  to  the  people  of  the  South-w-est,  in  which  he  declared 
himself  in  favor  of  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery.  This, 
naturally  enough,  had  only  the  effect  of  exasperating  the  Confed- 
erates and  of  renewing  the  old  quarrel  between  the  Republicans 
and  the  Democrats  at  the  North. 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  relate  the  events  of  which  the  Atlan- 
tic coast  was  the  theatre,  after  the  occupation  of  Hatteras  by  the 
Federals.  The  latter,  properly  appreciating  the  importance  of 
the  forts  they  had  captured  on  the  30th  of  August,  had  sent  the 
Twentieth  Indiana  regiment  to  reinforce  the  small  garrison  that 
Butler  had  left  there.  Nor  did  they  stop  there,  for  they  had  only 
taken  possession  of  an  entrance  into  the  inland  sea,  into  which  they 
had  the  utmost  interest  in  penetrating,  and  it  was  important,  above 
all,  not  to  leave  the  other  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  who  yet  occu- 
pied two  of  them.  These  two  entrances,  opening  in  the  tongue  of 
sand  which  envelops  Pamlico  Sound,  are  the  Ocracoke  Inlet,  south 
of  Hatteras  ;  and  more  to  the  northward,  the  three  contiguous  estu- 
aries called  Oregon  Inlet,  New  Inlet,  and  Loggerhead  Inlet,  situ- 
ated near  the  island  of  Roanoke.     At  Ocracoke  the  Confederates 


452  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  erected  a  large  earthwork,  which  they  were  busy  in  arming. 
On  the  17th  of  September  the  guard-boat  Fanny  was  sent  to  de- 
stroy it ;  finding  that  it  had  been  abandoned,  all  she  had  to  do  was 
to  dismantle  it  and  throw  its  heavy  guns  into  the  sea.  Nothing 
remained  to  be  done  but  to  close  the  northern  inlets,  but  this  was 
a  more  difficult  task,  for  the  Confederates  had  placed  a  strong 
garrison  on  the  island  of  Roanoke,  and  were  in  possession  of 
several  steamers  which  could  speedily  convey  that  garrison  to  any 
of  the  neighboring  points,  and  in  case  of  need  even  threaten  the 
small  garrison  of  Hatteras.  An  expedition  was  organized  under 
Colonel  Brown  to  take  permanent  possession  of  the  inlets.  The 
Twentieth  Indiana  embarked  on  the  30th  of  September,  and  was 
landed  in  a  few  hours  on  the  tongue  of  sand  fifty  kilometres 
north  of  Hatteras,  not  far  from  a  village  called  Chicomacomico ; 
he  entrenched  himself  at  that  point,  until  the  arrival  of  reinforce- 
ments should  permit  him  to  advance  to  the  inlets  and  take  pos- 
session of  them.  The  Fanny  returned  the  following  day,  bring- 
ing him  guns,  provisions,  ammunition,  and  a  portion  of  his 
baggage.  But  she  had  hardly  commenced  landing  her  cargo 
when  she  was  surprised  by  three  small  Confederate  vessels ;  and 
after  exchanaring^  a  few  cannon-shots  with  them  her  crew  aban- 
doned  her,  thus  leaving  a  valuable  prize  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  and  depriving  the  expedition  of  the  resources  which  it 
needed.  Colonel  Brown  nevertheless  took  up  his  quarters  with 
his  eight  hundred  men  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chicomacomico, 
in  the  expectation  of  soon  receiving  the  supplies  of  which  he 
had  been  deprived.  But  the  Confederates  did  not  allow  him  to 
remain  long  in  peace.  Commodore  Lynch,  whom  we  have  already 
mentioned,  had  by  activity  and  intelligence  organized  a  consider- 
able naval  force  on  the  inland  waters,  and  he  was  not  satisfied 
mth  the  capture  of  the  Fanny.  As  soon  as  the  occupation  of 
Chicomacomico  was  known  at  Roanoke,  three  regiments,  number- 
ing over  two  thousand  men,  were  speedily  embarked  on  board  the 
flotilla  and  directed  again-st  the  new  Federal  post.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  the  4th  of  October  they  found  themselves  in  front  of  the 
camp  occupied  by  the  Twentieth  Indiana,  and  Lynch's  guns  soon 
threw  disorder  into  the  ranks  of  the  Federals,  who,  surprised  by 
this  unexpected  attack,  had  hastily  rushed  to  their  arms.     The 


PORT  ROYAL.  453 

Confederates  availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to  land  about 
fifteen  hundred  men  north  of  Chicomacomico,  while  another  regi- 
ment tried  to  eflect  a  landing  farther  south,  so  as.  to  cut  off  the 
retreat  of  the  enemy.  This  last  operation  was  thwarted  by  the 
shallowness  of  the  water;  but  the  Federals,  believing  themselves 
to  be  already  surrounded,  abandoned  their  camp,  with  everything 
it  contained,  and  fled  towards  the  beacli  of  Cape  Hatteras,  They 
arrived,  exhausted  by  fatigue,  in  the  greatest  confusion,  leaving 
behind  them  fifty  prisoners,  with  a  large  quantity  of  arms ;  they 
were  accompanied  by  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Chicomacomico, 
compromised  as  Union  men,  and  in  a  complete  state  of  destitu- 
tion. The  Confederates,  being  obliged  to  drag  the  howitzers  they 
had  landed  through  the  heavy  sand,  were  unable  to  complete  their 
success  by  a  rapid  march,  and  night  overtook  them  before  they 
had  reached  Cape  Hatteras.  On  the  following  morning  Brown's 
soldiers,  who  had  gathered  along  the  beach  near  the  cape,  saw  the 
Federal  frigate  Susquehanna  approaching,  which  brought  them 
the  provisions  they  so  much  needed,  and  the  protection  of  her 
powerful  guns ;  at  the  same  time,  they  received  by  land  a  rein- 
forcement of  a  few  hundred  men.  Finally,  another  Federal  ship, 
which  was  cruising  on  the  coast,  soon  after  came  to  present  her 
broadside  in  their  front.  In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederates  had 
at  last  completed  their  landing,  and  were  marching  against  them 
by  two  converging  roads ;  but  when  they  got  near  the  beach,  the 
fire  of  the  enemy's  ships  revealed  to  them  the  fact  that  they 
had  allowed  the  opportuunity  for  crushing  their  adversaries  to 
escape ;  they  re-embarked  with  their  trophies,  while  the  Federals 
hastened  back  to  Fort  Hatteras.  The  success  obtained  in  the 
month  of  August  by  Stringham  and  Butler  had  demonstrated  to 
the  Federal  government  all  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
such  expeditions ;  it  accordingly  determined  to  try  a  new  one 
upon  a  much  larger  scale,  the  results  of  which  would  in  its  esti- 
mation be  proportionate  to  the  means  devoted  to  it. 

During  the  summer  a  special  commission  was  appointed  to  de- 
vise means  for  occupying  certain  points  on  the  coast  of  the  insur- 
gent States ;  it  was  composed  of  army  and  navy  officers,  and  mem- 
bers of  the  corps  of  hydrographic  engineers  called  the  Coast  Sur- 
vey, all  under  the  presidency  of  Commodore  Dupont.     For  many 


454  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

years  past  this  scientific  and  active  corps  had  surveyed  all  the 
coasts  of  the  United  States,  and  had  published  maps  which  are 
models  of  clearness  and  precision.  Mr.  Boutelle,  who,  before  the 
war,  had  charge  of  the  coasts  of  South  Carolina,  brought  valuable 
assistance  and  co-operation  to  the  labors  of  the  commission,  which 
were  stimulated  by  the  indefatigable  zeal  of  Mr.  Fox,  the  Assist- 
ant Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

It  was  determined  to  organize  an  expedition  of  sufficient  mag- 
nitude to  occupy  one  of  the  most  important  points  on  the  enemy's 
coast,  to  establish  itself  there  by  means  of  a  self-sustaining  policy 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  defy  all  the  efforts  of  the  Confederates 
and  gradually  to  extend  the  sphere  of  its  operations  upon  land. 
All  the  ships  of  war  which  were  not  indispensable  elsewhere 
were  collected  together,  and  no  pains  were  spared  to  put  them  in 
a  condition  to  perform  the  task  which  was  assigned  to  them.  Guns 
of  the  heaviest  calibre  were  put  on  board,  most  of  them  smooth- 
bore howitzers  of  nine  and  eleven-inch  calibre,  and  they  were 
provided  with  well-trained  gunners  and  picked  crews.  The  fleet, 
under  Dupont's  command,  was  to  consist  of  the  steam  frigates 
Wabcush  and  Susquehanna,  three  sailing-frigates,  five  sloops-of- 
war,  six  large  gun-boats,  and  several  order-boats ;  to  these  was 
added  a  convoy  of  twenty-five  ships  loaded  with  coal,  ready  to 
form  a  vast  depot  capable  of  supplying  the  fleet  so  soon  as  it  should 
conquer  a  point  of  landing.  While  the  navy  was  making  these 
preparations.  General  T.  W.  Sherman  was  organizing  at  Annap- 
olis, Marylaad,  an  army  corps  of  fifteen  thousand  men,  consisting 
of  three  strong  brigades ;  and  the  quartermaster's  department  was 
making  all  the  necessary  preparations  for  transporting  them.  As 
we  have  stated  elsewhere,  it  is  this  branch  of  the  service  which 
has  the  entire  control,  exclusive  of  the  navy,  of  the  matter  of 
freight,  and  supervision  of  all  vessels  hired  or  purchased  for  that 
kind  of  service.  Thirty-two  steamships  were  in  readiness  for 
the  embarkation  of  Sherman's  corps,  with  all  his  materiel  and  a 
sufficient  supply  of  provisions  for  a  long  expedition.  A  few  of 
them,  like  the  Vanderhilt,  were  magnificent  packets  admirably 
adapted  for  that  purpose ;  others  again  were  old  ships  almost  unfit 
for  service  ;  but  the  government  had  to  take  evervthins:  that  could 
be  found.      The  personnel  of  this  fleet,  belonging  chiefly  to  the 


PORT  ROYAL.  455 

merchant  marine,  was  not  all  that  could  be  dt  sired ;  but  in  an  en- 
terprise so  speedily  organized,  and  of  such  unprecedented  magni- 
tude, perfection  was  not  looked  for.  On  the  25th  of  October  the 
whole  fleet  and  the  vessels  wdth  Sherman's  army  on  board  were 
assembled  off  Fortress  Monroe  ;  the  order  of  sailing  and  of  dis- 
embarkation had  been  arranged  in  minute  details.  The  transport- 
ships  were  formed  into  three  columns,  each  conveying  a  complete 
brigade ;  they  were  provided  with  long-boats,  and  had  in  tow  a 
sufficient  number  of  surf-boats  to  land  four  thousand  five  hun- 
dred men  each  trip. 

The  point  of  attack  was  not  definitely  settled  until  the  last  mo- 
ment, and  its  choice  remained  a  profound  secret ;  it  was  only  known 
to  Dupont,  Sherman,  and  the  members  of  the  cabinet,  when  the 
fleet  got  under  way.  This  uncertainty  regarding  the  destination 
of  so  vast  an  armament  caused  trouble  and  alarm  along  the  whole 
coast  of  the  Southern  States.  There  was  not  a  single  Confederate 
port  from  Charleston  to  Texas  Avhere  that  fleet,  whose  power  had 
long  been  the  subject  of  comment  in  all  the  Northern  papers,  was 
not  expected  to  appear  soon.  Having  first  thought  of  the  Sa- 
vannah River,  Dupont  had  decided  to  direct  his  attack  upon  the 
entrances  to  Hilton  Head.  These  inlets,  situated  in  South  Car- 
olina at  almost  equal  distances  from  Charleston  and  Savannah, 
form  the  principal  entrance  into  a  labyrinth  of  canals,  with  which 
the  numerous  islands  along  the  coast  comprised  between  those  two 
points  are  intersected.  Rivers  run  from  every  direction  to  mingle 
their  waters  with  those  of  the  sea.  These  islands,  flat,  sandy,  and 
half  submerged,  produced  the  famous  cotton  known  by  the  name 
of  sea-island  cotton,  which  sold  in  the  European  markets  ten 
times  higher  than  the  coarser  products  of  the  inland  plantations. 
Koar  the  mouth  of  the  rivers,  which  roll  their  waters  sluggishly 
through  an  alluvial  soil  covered  with  forests  and  heavy  thickets 
c»f  myrtle  and  magnolias,  there  were  swamps  which  the  hand  of 
man  had  converted  into  fruitful  rice-fields.  The  white  proprietors 
were  all  in  the  habit  of  flying  from  this  deadly  climate  at  the  ap- 
proach of  summer,  and  even  among  the  negroes  themselves  those 
alone  could  stand  it  who  had  been  accustomed  to  it  from  their 
birth  ;  but  the  incomparable  mildness  of  winter  again  brought 
baick  to  the  beautiful  plantations  which  abound  in  the  neighbor- 


456  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

hood  of  the  little  town  of  Beaufort  the  richest  proprietors  of  Car- 
olina, who  delighted  in  spending  a  few  months  among  the  orange 
groves  and  amid  all  the  splendors  of  an  almost  tropical  vegetation. 
In  a  military  point  of  vieAV,  the  bay  of  Port  Royal,  the  entrance 
of  which  is  narrowed  by  Hilton  Head,  is  one  of  the  finest  ports 
in  America,  and  the  group  of  islands  of  St.  Helena,  sufficiently 
large  to  furnish  supplies  of  every  kind,  yet  easy  to  defend  and 
surrounded  by  navigable  arms  of  the  sea,  made  an  excellent  depot 
for  the  navy.  These  advantages  had  not  been  unobserved  by  the 
navigator  Jean  Ribaut,  of  Dieppe,  who,  in  1562,  had  brought 
there  a  party  of  Norman  Protestants,  and  had  built  a  fort  on  one 
of  the  islands ;  the  French  names  of  Beaufort  and  Port  Royal 
perpetuate  the  remembrance  of  those  hardy  pioneers,  whom  the 
sad  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  driven  far  from  a 
country  too  little  concerned  to  nourish  her  children  at  home. 

Fine  weather  had  favored  the  departure  of  the  fleet,  but  it  was 
not  to  escape  the  storm  which,  in  consequence  of  its  periodical 
return  in  the  beginning  of  November,  sailors  call  the  death-blast. 
The  bad  weather  overtook  Dupont  south-east  of  Cape  Hatteras 
on  the  night  of  the  1st  and  2d  of  November.  When  day  dawned, 
cloudy  and  dim,  on  that  immense  sea,  the  waves  of  which  the 
hurricane  covered  with  foam,  the  squadron  was  entirely  scattered 
and  in  a  perilous  situation.  The  ships  of  war  braved  the  storm 
with  impunity ;  but  this  was  not  the  case  with  the  military  trans- 
ports, overburdened  with  troops,  some  of  which  were  better  suited 
to  navigate  rivers  than  the  high  sea.  Many  of  them  sustained 
considerable  damage  and  incurred  great  danger ;  four  were  obliged 
to  seek  shelter  in  Chesapeake  Bay ;  several  only  saved  themselves 
by  throwing  their  cargoes  overboard ;  two  were  wrecked  on  the 
enemy's  coast  and  their  crews  made  prisoners ;  and  two  otliers 
sank  in  open  sea :  the  men  they  had  on  board  were  nearly  all 
saved,  thanks  to  the  courage  of  the  sailors  belonging  to  the  other 
vessels,  who  went  to  their  assistance  in  spite  of  the  storm.  When 
the  sea  became  calm,  the  captains  of  the  scattered  vessels,  opening 
the  sealed  orders  which  had  been  forwarded  to  them,  found  Hilton 
Head  designated  as  the  place  of  rendezvous,  and  on  the  4th  of  No- 
vember a  large  number  of  them  were  already  in  sight  of  that  point. 

Dupont  arrived  in  the  course  of  the  morning  with  twenty-five 


PORT  ROYAL.  457 

vessels,  aftcjr  having  put  the  Susquehanna  alout,  opposite  Charles- 
ton ;  and  on  that  evening,  wlien  the  sun  went  down  behind  the 
lower  coast  of  Carolina,  it  shone  upon  the  greater  portion  of  the 
fleet  riding  peaceably  on  the  bosom  of  a  sea  as  smooth  as  a  mirror. 
Most  of  the  ships  which  had  been  dispersed  were  heard  from,  and 
that  terrible  storm  so  warmly  welcomed  in  the  South  as  an  inter- 
position of  Providence  had  not,  after  all,  caused  any  irreparable 
injury  to  the  expedition. 

The  entrance  of  Port  Royal  was  difficult  of  access.  A  bar, 
with  eighteen  feet  of  water  at  high  tide,  forms,  several  kilometres 
in  front,  a  vast  semicircle,  the  two  extremities  of  which  touch  the 
coast.  A  tortuous  channel  leads  through  numerous  sand-banks 
to  the  pass  which  opens  between  the  island  of  St.  Philip  to  the 
north  and  that  of  Hilton  Head  to  the  south.  The  latter  takes  its 
name  from  the  cape  formed  by  its  northern  extremity.  Beyond 
it  lies  an  immense  sheet  of  water,  tranquil  and  deep,  which  runs 
far  inland  and  serves  as  the  principal  artery  to  the  network  of 
canals  which  render  that  region  a  perfect  archipelago. 

The  whole  line  of  defences  along  the  entire  coast  of  South  Car- 
olina had  been  entrusted  to  General  Kipley.  He  had  constructed 
two  large  earthworks  to  command  the  pass  of  Port  Royal.  The 
larger,  Fort  Walker,  stood  on  the  island  of  Hilton  Head.  It 
presented  two  faces  to  the  sea,  with  two  flanks,  and  was  closed  at 
the  gorge  by  a  bastioned  curtain  with  a  lunette.  The  other,  of 
smaller  dimensions,  called  Fort  Beauregard,  had  a  similar  front, 
but  was  closed  by  a  simple  parapet,  and  was  flanked  by  a  line  of 
breastworks,  with  platforms  and  embrasures  for  a  few  guns. 
These  works,  situated  at  a  distance  of  four  thousand  metres  from 
each  other,  had  been  constructed  some  time  previously,  but  never 
finished,  and  both  were  imperfectly  armed.  Fort  Walker  only 
received  its  bomb-proofs  towards  the  latter  part  of  October,  and 
they  were,  moreover,  insufficient  for  its  garrison,  while  the  arma- 
ment of  the  batteries  was  only  completed  in  the  presence  of  the 
enemy's  fleet.  It  consisted  of  twenty  guns  for  Fort  Walker  and 
nineteen  for  Fort  Beauregard,  but  only  eight  of  the  former  and 
seven  of  the  latter  had  the  range  of  the  fleet ;  finally,  out  of  these 
fifteen  guns  there  were  only  eight  with  a  calibre  of  more  than 
eighteen  centimetres,  two  of  which  were  rifled. 


458  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

The  troops  occupying  that  part  of  the  coast  were  commanded  by 
General  Drayton,  a  rich  proprietor  of  the  neighborhood.  The  sad 
fatalities  attending  the  civil  war  obliged  him  to  fight  against  his 
brother,  an  officer  of  the  navy,  who  had  remained  loyal  to  his 
flag,  and  who  commanded  one  of  the  Federal  sloops-of-war.  His 
forces  were  scattered,  but  he  succeeded,  before  the  attack,  in  col- 
lecting two  thousand  four  hundred  and  seventy-seven  men,  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-seven  of  whom  were  placed  in 
the  fort  and  on  the  island  to  the  south,  and  six  hundred  and  forty 
in  the  positions  north  of  the  pass. 

A  flotilla  consisting  of  eight  small  steamers  had  been  organ- 
ized by  Commodore  Tatnall,  a  former  officer  of  the  Federal  navy, 
who  had  distinguished  himself  in  1859  by  the  zeal  he  displayed 
in  going  to  the  assistance  of  the  Anglo-French  expedition  in 
China  after  the  check  it  sustained  on  the  Pei-Ho.  The  Confed- 
erates placed  great  reliance  on  that  flotilla  and  its  commander. 
Their  expectations  were  to  be  cruelly  disappointed. 

Immediately  after  his  arrival  Dupont  set  to  work.  A  gun- 
boat had  reconnoitred  the  bar  while  exchanging  a  few  cannon- 
shots  with  Tatnall,  and  under  the  guidance  of  Captain  Davis  and 
Mr.  Boutelle  she  had  placed  buoys  in  the  channel  where  the 
large  vessels  had  to  pass.  On  that  same  evening  all  the  smaller 
vessels  and  a  portion  of  the  transport-ships  followed  in  her  track. 
On  the  following  day,  the  5tlj,  while  some  vessels  were  drawing 
the  fire  of  the  enemy's  batteries  to  compel  them  to  show  their 
strength,  the  rest  of  the  fleet  entered  in  turn,  and  took  a  position 
whence  they  could  speedily  commence  the  battle,  leaving  only 
the  three  sailing-frigates  outside.  The  strength  of  the  enemy's 
works  was  such  that  Sherman's  troops  could  not  be  landed  until 
those  works  had  been  reduced ;  the'  fleet  alone  was  called  upon  to 
play  an  active  part.  It  was  ready  on  the  6th,  but  the  stormy 
weather  rendered  it  necessary  to  postpone  the  attack  till  the  fol- 
lowing day. 

The  morning  of  the  7th  was  calm  and  radiant,  and  admirably 
calculated  to  favor  the  movements  of  the  fleet.  At  an  early  hour 
Dupont  gave  the  signal  waited  for,  selecting  Fort  Walker  for  the 
special  point  of  attack.  His  instructions  to  the  war-vessels,  which 
were  formed  in  two  columns,  directed  them  to  fight  under  steam, 


PORT  ROYAL.  459 

aud  to  keep  always  moving,  so  as  not  to  become  a  fixed  target  for 
the  enemy.  The  first  division,  led  by  the  Wabash,  which  carried 
the  commodore's  flag,  comprised  the  Susquehanna  and  the  five 
sloops-of-war.  It  was  to  pass  first  in  front  of  Fort  Beauregard, 
then  to  veer  in  column  inside  of  the  pass,  in  order  to  defile  in 
front  of  Hilton  Head,  heading  seaward,  then  to  resume  its  orig- 
inal course,  thus  describing  an  ellipse,  and  firing  alternately  upon 
the  forts,  until  they  should  be  reduced  to  silence.  The  second 
division,  consisting  of  six  gun-boats,  was  ordered  to  proceed  be- 
yond the  pass,  and  to  take  such  position  as  to  enfilade  the  enemy's 
batteries.  This  plan  of  battle  was  carried  out  in  every  particular. 
At  half-past  nine  o'clock  the  Wabash  saluted  the  two  foi-ts  with 
her  broadsides  from  a  distance,  and  half  an  hour  after,  the  col- 
umn, guided  by  that  frigate,  returned,  passing  within  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  metres  of  Fort  Walker.  The  speed  of  the  vessels 
was  slackened  in  order  to  give  more  precision  to  their  fire,  and 
running  against  the  tide  enabled  them  to  steer  easily.  The  large 
shells  of  the  Federal  guns  fell  with  terrible  rapidity  and  precision 
within  the  narrow  enclosure  of  the  fort.  The  enfilading  fire  of 
the  gun-boats,  which,  after  a  few  shots,  had  dispersed  Tatnall's 
fleet,  soon  made  matters  worse  for  the  defenders  of  the  fort,  ex- 
posed as  they  were,  without  protection,  to  the  converging  fire  of 
the  whole  fleet.  Amid  the  heat  of  battle  they  had  to  contend 
with  all  those  difficulties  which  insufficiency  of  preparation  is  sure 
to  entail.  All  the  guns  differed  in  calibre,  the  projectiles  did  not 
fit  the  bores,  and  many  of  the  carriages  were  already  broken. 
Notwithstanding  the  courage  of  the  Confederates,  their  fire  slack- 
ened considerably  after  the  first  circuit  of  the  fleet.  General 
Ripley  had  not  considered  that  his  duty  called  him  in  person  to 
the  forts  he  had  constructed,  and  General  Drayton  abandoned  the 
post  of  danger  at  half-past  ten  under  pretext  of  going  in  search 
of  reinforcements.  The  Federal  vessels  had  been  struck  repeat- 
edly ;  many  of  their  men  had  been  killed  and  wounded.  A  ball 
had  passed  through  the  mainmast  of  the  Waba^'ih,  but  they  had 
not  suffered  seriously ;  and  when,  continuing  their  manoeuvre,  they 
passed  again  in  front  of  Fort  Beauregard,  they  crippled  it  with 
their  fire.  At  the  second  turn  the  Federal  column,  passing  again 
before  Fort  Walker,  apj)roaclied  within  less  than  six  hundred 


460  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

metres  of  its  breastworks ;  fearing  no  longer  the  fire  of  tliat  fort^ 
it  then  slackened  its  speed  and  poured  at  leisure  a  shower  of  shot 
among  the  Confederate  gunners.  The  latter,  when  they  saw 
through  the  smoke  that  the  assailants  were  retiring  after  the  first 
broadside,  thought  they  had  got  rid  of  them.  This  new  assault, 
therefore,  disconcerted  them.  In  Fort  Walker  five  out  of  eight 
guns  had  been  dismounted;  the  powder  magazine  was  nearly 
empty,  the  dead  and  the  wounded  encumbered  the  enceinte  of  the 
fort.  On  the  strength  of  some  vague  orders  from  their  com- 
manders the  Confederates  began  to  abandon  it;  and  breaking 
off  into  separate  groups  for  the  purpose  of  hastily  crossing  the 
vast  open  space  ploughed  by  the  projectiles  of  the  enemy,  they 
reached  the  neighboring  woods  one  by  one.  Three  brave  soldiers 
alone  remained  at  the  post  of  honor,  and  for  half  an  hour  con- 
tinued to  serve  the  only  gun  which  was  still  able  to  reply  to  the 
fire  of  the  fleet.  Fort  Beauregard  was  evacuated  in  the  same 
manner ;  but  before  leaving  it  its  commander  conceived  the  trucu- 
lent idea  of  placing  a  machine  in  it  destined  to  blow  up  the  first 
man  who  should  cross  its  threshold.  At  two  o'clock  the  battle 
ceased ;  and  the  Federal  sailors,  having  quickly  landed,  took  pos- 
session of  the  two  works  of  the  enemy.  That  battle  cost  them 
eight  killed  and  twenty-three  wounded.  The  Confederates,  on 
their  side,  lost  eleven  killed,  forty-eight  wounded,  and  seven 
prisoners. 

The  troops  who  were  on  Hilton  Head  and  St.  Philip  Islands 
made  haste  to  embark,  after  having  gathered  up  the  fugitives  from 
the  two  forts,  and  gained  the  main  land.  Tatnall  had  to  confine 
himself  to  covering  that  precipitate  retreat,  and  afterwards  to 
setting  fire  to  his  flotilla,  which  during  the  whole  engagement 
had  not  even  been  able  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  Federals  for 
an  instant.  The  latter  were  masters  of  the  whole  archipelago  of 
St.  Helena,  and  Sherman,  on  lauding,  had  only  to  take  possession 
of  a  territory  which  the  enemy  was  no  longer  able  to  contest. 

This  success,  so  complete  and  decisive,  was  due  to  the  superi- 
ority of  the  Federal  artillery.  It  proved  in  a  striking  manner 
that  uncovered  batteries  could  not  resist  the  converging  fire  of 
vessels,  armed  with  those  powerful  howitzers  with  which  the  Fed- 
eral navy  had  been  supplied  even  before  the  war. 


PORT  ROYAL.  461 

The  eflPect  of  the  battle  of  Port  Royal  was  as  largely  felt  in  the 
North,  where  it  revived  the  hopes  of  her  people,  as  in  the  Sonth, 
to  whose  people  it  revealed  the  presence  of  a  new  and  pressing 
danger.  The  Federals  had  conquered  a  strong  base  of  operations 
on  the  enemy's  coast ;  they  had  carried  the  war  into  South  Car- 
olina, the  State  which  had  given  the  first  signal  of  civil  war,  and 
had  been  the  more  ardent  in  the  struggle  because  she  had  thought 
herself  less  liable  to  suffer  from  it.  Sherman  might,  perhaps,  at 
the  first  moment  of  his  adversary's  disorder,  have  been  able  to 
l^ush  his  success  farther,  and  to  lead  his  army  upon  Charleston  or 
Savannah.  But  he  was  afraid  of  risking  such  a  venture,  and 
contented  himself  with  the  occupancy  of  his  new  conquest,  in 
order  to  make  it  the  centre  of  operations  rather  political  than 
military. 

The  archipelago  of  St.  Helena  opened  the  heart  of  the  slave 
States  to  the  abolition  campaign,  and  offered  a  place  of  refuge  to 
the  negroes  who  were  flying  from  the  control  of  their  rebel  masters. 
The  latter  had  all  left  Beaufort  and  its  vicinity  ;  and  when  the 
Federals  occupied  that  small  town  on  tlie  11th  of  November,  they 
found  only  the  black  population,  who  had  refused  to  abandon  it. 
Notwithstanding  their  ignorance  and  stupidity,  often  feigned, 
which  was  the  consequence  of  their  servile  condition,  the  negroes 
perfectly  understood  that  the  opponents  of  their  masters  could  not 
be  their  enemies;  they  had  frequently  lieard  abolitionists  spoken 
of  with  hatred,  which  set  them  to  thinking;  and  when,  in  the 
course  of  the  war.  Federal  vessels  approached  the  plantations  de- 
serted ])y  their  owners,  the  abandoned  slaves  were  more  than  once 
seen  crowding  on  board  in  search  of  that  legendary  personage  who 
was  to  deliver  them  from  all  their  ills,  and  whom,  in  a  jargon 
curiously  expressive,  they  styled  3Iassa  Bobolltion. 

But  General  Sherman,  who  was  not  an  abolitionist,  and  upon 
whom  President  Lincoln  had  moreover  enjoined  the  greatest  cau- 
tion in  regard  to  the  slave  question,  could  only  protect  them, 
Avithout  undertaking  a  direct  propagandisra  against  the  servile  in- 
stitution. As  we  propose  to  return  to  this  subject  in  a  later  vol- 
ume, we  shall  merely  remark  in  this  place  that  he  acquitted  him- 
self of  this  delicate  mission  very  wisely,  and  that  he  performed 
the  duties  imposed  by  humanity  towards  the  people  whom  he  had 


462  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

delivered  from  opj)ression,  without  touching  upon  the  consti- 
tutional questions  which  were  not  within  his  province.  He  prom- 
ised an  indemnity  to  the  owners  of  slaves  who  should  give  evi- 
dence of  their  loyalty  to  the  Union.  At  the  same  time,  he  thought 
proper  to  issue  a  conciliatory  appeal  to  the  citizens  of  South  Car- 
olina, which  the  latter  naturally  received  with  contempt  and  de- 
rision, and  to  which  they  replied  by  causing  the  immense  depots 
of  cotton  which  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Federals  to  be 
secretly  set  on  fire  by  their  emissaries.  Faithful  to  the  orders  of 
their  government,  they  hoped  thereby  to  compel  Europe  to  inter- 
fere to  the  extent  of  raising  the  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports. 
Durino;  several  weeks  the  fires  which  were  reflected  in  the  \vaters 
of  the  archipelago,  and  which  at  times  lighted  up  the  whole 
sky  with  a  lurid  blaze,  bore  evidence  to  the  ardor  which  an- 
imated the  combatants  in  that  great  political  conflict.  "King 
Cotton "  was  on  fire,  but  it  was  a  useless  sacrifice ;  the  reign  of 
Slavery  was  not  to  spring  again  into  life  from  its  ashes. 

The  occupation  of  most  of  the  islands  in  the  vicinity  of  the  St. 
Helena  group  was  the  natural  consequence  of  the  victory  of  Hil- 
ton Head.  It  was  effected  gradually  before  the  end  of  the  year. 
Among  all  the  points  of  the  coast  which  the  Federals  had  thus 
seized  without  striking  a  blo\v,  thanks  to  the  prestige  of  their 
success,  the  most  important  was  Tybee  Island,  at  the  entrance  of 
the  Savannah  River.  Situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  mouth 
of  that  river,  and  being  the  spot  where  the  lighthouse  stands, 
Tybee  Island  enabled  the  Federals,  as  soon  as  they  became  mas- 
ters of  it,  to  obstruct  the  passage  of  the  blochade-runners  on  their 
way  to  the  great  mart  of  Savannah.  At  a  distance  of  about  six 
hundred  feet  from  its  borders,  on  an  islet  in  the  middle  of  the 
river,  stood  Fort  Pulaski,  so  called  after  the  illustrious  exile,  to 
whom  America  had  the  honor  of  giving  an  asylum.  This  great 
work  of  masonry,  constructed  on  General  Bernard's  plan,  on  the 
same  model  as  Forts  Warren  at  Boston  and  Sumter  at  Charles- 
ton, commanded  the  entire  course  of  the  river.  Tybee  Island 
afibrded  some  positions  from  which  its  high  walls  could  be  easily 
bombarded.  On  the  25th  of  November  the  sailors  of  the  steamer 
Flag  landed  on  this  island,  and  the  government  had  the  satisfac- 


POBT  ROYAL.      ■  463 

tion  of  being  able  to  announce  to  the  public  that  the  Federal 
banner  floated  once  more  on  the  soil  of  Georgia. 

A  few  days  after,  the  navy  extended  its  conquests  still  farther 
south.  The  group  of  islands  to  which  Tybee  belongs  is  separated 
from  another  group,  called  Warsaw  Islands,  by  a  deep  entrance 
which  bears  that  name.  A  navigable  channel  connects  this  pass 
with  the  estuary  of  the  Savannah  River  above  Fort  Pulaski. 
The  Federal  gun-boats  ran  into  it,  putting  to  flight  on  their  ap- 
proach the  Georgia  militia  occupying  the  works  erected  on  AVar- 
saw  Islands,  and  thus  opening  a  passage  for  future  operations, 
which  would  enable  them  to  reach  Savannah  by  turning  Fort 
Pulaski. 

Finally,  on  the  12th  of  December,  Captain  Rodgers,  who  com- 
manded the  naval  squadron  operating  along  this  part  of  the  coast, 
entered  Ossabaw  Bay,  but,  doubting  his  ability  to  establish  him- 
self there,  merely  exchanged  a  few  cannon-shots  with  a  fort  situ- 
ated at  the  extremity,  and  retired  after  making  a  thorough  recon- 
naissance of  the  bay. 

In  the  mean  time,  similar  enterprises  were  progressing  on  the 
other  side  of  Hilton  Head.  The  group  of  St.  Helena  Islands  is 
bounded  on  the  north  by  a  deep  bay  bearing  the  same  name,  and 
on  the  south  by  that  of  Port  Royal.  This  bay,  Avhich  was  des- 
tined to  be  of  great  use  to  the  navy,  was  occupied  at  the  end  of 
November.  The  vessels  which  were  sent  to  make  a  reconnais- 
sance of  it  found  the  works  erected  upon  its  borders  without  de- 
fenders, and  they  penetrated  as  far  as  the  river  Coosaw,  which 
empties  its  waters  into  it,  without  any  difficulty.  A  few  weeks 
after,  the  Federal  ships  made  their  appearance  in  the  estuary 
called  North  Edisto  River,  situated  between  St.  Helena  Sound 
and  Charleston.  On  Edisto  Island,  which  separates  that  estuary 
from  the  bay  of  St.  Helena,  tliere  were  several  fortifications  and 
a  camp  of  considerable  size,  all  of  which  were  evacuated  after  an 
insignificant  cannonade. 

Thus,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  Dupont's  fleet,  supported  by  de- 
tachments from  Sherman's  army,  was  in  possession  of  the  five 
large  bays  of  North  Edisto,  St.  Helena,  Port  Royal,  Tybee,  War- 
saw, and  the  whole  chain  of  islands  which  forms  the  coast  of  Car- 
olina and  Georgia  between  those  bays.    After  the  battle  of  Hilton 


464  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Head  it  came  in  contact  with  the  enemy  but  once ;  this  was  on 
the  1st  of  January,  1862.  The  Confederates  had  massed  several 
thousand  men  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Coosaw  River,  in  a  num- 
ber of  fortified  works  recently  erected  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
manding the  course  of  that  stream.  It  was  determined  to  dis- 
lodge them.  Four  gun-boats,  accompanied  by  two  ferry-boats 
and  four  barges,  gained  the  entrance  of  the  Coosaw  through  in- 
land canals,  while  the  brigade  of  Stevens,  numbering  four  thou- 
sand five  hundred  men,  joined  them  by  land  from  Beaufort  by 
crossing  the  island  of  St.  Helena.  The  troops  were  conveyed  to 
the  other  bank  of  the  Coosaw,  and  attacked  the  Confederate 
works  in  rear,  while  the  vessels  cannonaded  them  from  the  river. 
After  a  short  fight,  in  which  they  lost  nine  men,  the  Federals  oc- 
cupied all  the  positions  of  the  enemy,  who  fled  rapidly  into  the 
interior. 

In  this  chapter  we  have  seen  the  task  which  events  had  im- 
posed on  the  Federal  navy,  and  how  well  that  task  was  accom- 
plished. We  have  shown  how  it  had  been  necessary  at  the  com- 
mencement to  create  and  organize  everything,  the  personnel  as 
well  as  the  materiel,  ships,  and  guns.  The  navy,  once  in  a  condi- 
tion to  enforce  respect,  came  to  the  protection  of  merchant- vessels 
by  going  in  pursuit  of  Confederate  privateers.  It  established, 
in  the  face  of  unheard-of  difficulties,  an  effective  blockade  along 
the  whole  of  the  enemy's  coast ;  and  finally,  it  occupied  a  num- 
ber of  important  points  on  that  coast  by  means  of  combined 
expeditions,  the  largest  and  most  successful  of  which  was  that  of 
Port  Royal. 

We  have  now  to  relate  an  event  which  came  near  changing 
the  whole  aspect  of  the  war,  and  caused  a  commotion  both  in 
Europe  and  America  which  nobody  can  yet  have  forgotten. 
Although  this  incident  was  essentially  of  a  political  character,  it 
must  take  its  place  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  maritime  operations. 
We  allude  to  the  arrest  of  the  Confederate  commissioners  on  board 
a  British  vessel. 

The  Richmond  government  had  scarcely  been  constituted  when 
it  aspired  to  official  recognition  on  the  part  of  Europe,  the  rights 
of  a  belligerent,  which  had  been  so  readily  granted  to  it,  not  being 
deemed  sufficient.     This  recognition  would  not  have  been  of  any 


PORT  ROYAL.  465 

great  value  of  itself.  It  could  neither  have  prevented  the  block- 
ade nor  have  secured  one  cannon  or  one  musket  more  to  the  Con- 
federates ;  but  the  United  States  justly  regarded  it  as  an  act  of 
moral  hostility  which  they  were  determined  to  oppose  most  ener- 
getically. It  was  because  it  hoped  to  see  the  latter  thus  drawn 
into  an  European  war  that  the  Confederate  government  insisted 
with  so  much  pertinacity  on  being  recognized,  and  it  had  deputed 
two  prominent  politicians,  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell,  to  go  and 
plead  its  cause  in  London  and  Paris  in  the  capacity  of  envoys 
extraordinary.  These  two  agents  left  Charleston  by  the  steamer 
Theodora,  and  reached  Havana  after  eluding  the  vigilance  of  the 
Federal  cruisers.  On  the  7th  of  November  they  embarked,  with 
their  secretaries,  Messrs.  Eustis  and  McFarland,  for  St.  Thomas 
and  England,  on  the  English  mail-packet  Trent.  At  that  time 
the  Federal  sloop-of-war  San  Jacinto  was  cruising  in  the  Florida 
waters  and  among  the  Antilles  in  search  of  the  Sumter.  She  was 
commanded  by  Captain  Wilkes,  a  navigator  known  by  his  dis- 
coveries in  southern  lands,  a  man  of  scientific  acquirements,  but 
of  an  eccentric  and  independent  character.  He  had  devoted  the 
long  leisure  hours  of  his  voyages  among  the  icebergs  of  the  polar 
sea  to  a  profound  study  of  maritime  law,  an  inextricable  laby- 
rinth, more  difficult  of  exploration  than  the  inhospitable  regions 
to  which  he  had  given  his  name.  Chance  took  him  to  Havana, 
where  he  found  the  Confederate  commissioners  feasted  by  that 
pro-slavery  community  and  preparing  for  their  departure,  con- 
cerning which  they  made  no  secret  whatever. 

Feeling  annoyed  at  the  facility  with  which  they  had  eluded  the 
blockade,  Wilkes  thought  he  would  make  amends  for  the  negli- 
gence of  the  Federal  cruisers  by  a  bold  stroke ;  it  may  be  that 
he  also  courted  an  opportunity  for  bestowing  that  popularity  upon 
his  name  which  his  scientific  labors  had  failed  to  secure.  What- 
ever may  have  been  his  motives,  he  consulted  the  works  considered 
as  authorities  in  such  matters,  and  persuaded  himself  that  he  was 
justified  by  international  law  in  capturing  the  enemy's  commis- 
sioners on  the  high  seas  under  a  neutral  flag.  Having  arrived  at 
that  conclusion,  he  proceeded  to  post  himself  in  the  Bahama  chan- 
nel, and  waited  quietly  for  the  English  steamer,  which  was  to  pass 
there  after  leaving  Havana.     The  Trent  hove  in  sight  on  Liu;  8^h 

Vol.  I.— 30 


466  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  November  at  the  very  hour  that  Wilkes  had  expected  her. 
Everything  was  ready  for  battle  on  board  the  San  Jacinto  ;  the 
men  were  at  their  posts  and  the  guns  loaded.  A  blank  cartridge 
was  fired;  but  as  the  English  packet  did  not  obey  that  sum- 
mons, Wilkes  sent  after  her  a  shell,  which  burst  in  front 
of  her  bow  and  compelled  her  to  heave  to.  A  moment  after, 
a  boat  with  Lieutenant  Fairfax  and  a  detachment  of  marines 
boarded  the  Trent,  whose  deck  was  crowded  with  passengers 
awaiting  the  issue  of  this  unexpected  scene.  The  Federal  officer, 
closely  followed  by  a  few  armed  men,  came  forward  and  informed 
the  commander  of  the  steamer,  Mr.  Moir,  that  he  intended  to 
exercise  the  right  of  visitation.  The  commander  having  refused 
to  produce  the  list  of  passengers,  he  declared  that  he  had  come  to 
seize  the  persons  of  the  commissioners,  whose  presence  on  board 
could  not  be  denied.  He  was  determined  not  to  withdraw  until 
he  had  executed  the  orders  of  his  commander,  and  in  support 
of  that  declaration  he  called  up  two  boats  which  were  at  hand 
with  reinforcements.  Mr.  Moir  and  the  English  mail  agent, 
Mr.  Williams,  an  old  retired  naval  captain,  replied  to  him 
wdth  much  warmth,  which  capped  the  climax  of  the  pas- 
sengers' excitement.  In  the  midst  of  this  scene  the  commis- 
sioners themselves  came  forward,  protesting  in  their  turn  against 
the  act  of  violence  with  which  they  were  threatened.  The 
reinforcements  called  for  by  Fairfax  had  come  aboard  and  been 
drawn  up  amidships  with  fixed  bayonets,  while  Messrs.  Mason 
and  Slidell  retired  to  their  respective  cabins,  declaring  that 
they  would  not  come  out  unless  compelled  by  force.  Fairfax 
went  to  bring  them  out,  and  with  the  aid  of  a  few  armed  men 
took  them  by  the  shoulders,  as  if  intending  to  carry  them  along. 
While  engaged  in  the  performance  of  this  degrading  act  of  vio- 
lence he  was  struck,  it  is  said,  by  Miss  Slidell,  who  had  bravely 
posted  herself  across  the  door  to  defend  her  father.  The  com- 
missioners were  taken  into  the  boats,  where  their  secretaries  fol- 
lowed them  without  resistance.  The  families  of  Messrs.  Slidell 
and  Eustis,  who  accompanied  them,  refused  the  repugnant  hosj)i- 
tality  of  the  San  Jacinto,  and  preferred  to  continue  their  voyage 
to  England,  where  they  could  be  more  useful  to  their  cause. 
Three  hours  after  the  first  cannon-shot  had  been  fired  Captain 


POET  ROYAL.  467 

Wilkes  set  the  Trent  free  and  proceeded  with  his  prisoners  to  Fort 
Monroe,  while  the  English  packet  steamed  in  the  directioji  of 
St.  Thomas,  where  her  passengers  and  Captain  Williams  toolc  the 
British  mail,  to  bear  to  Europe  without  delay  the  particulars  of 
the  drama  of  which  they  had  been  helpless  spectators.  The 
news  of  the  arrest  of  the  commissioners  was  known  in  the  United 
States  on  the  16th  of  November,  and  in  England  on  the  30tli ;  the 
diflPerent  impressions  produced  by  it  may  be  easily  imagined. 

In  America  it  was  hailed  with  a  shout  of  joy ;  people  saw 
nothing  in  it  at  first  but  the  result  obtained — the  capture  of  some 
of  the  most  inveterate  foes  of  the  Union.  When  the  act  of  dar- 
ing violence,  committed  in  contempt  of  the  British  flag,  was  under- 
stood in  all  its  details,  the  satisfaction  of  having  humbled  that 
rival  flag  overrode  every  other  consideration.  Wilkes,  after  tak- 
ing his  prisoners  to  Fort  Warren,  in  Boston  harbor,  was  congrat- 
ulated by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  everywhere  met  with  flattering 
demonstrations  of  respect,  and  elected  by  acclamation  a  member 
of  the  Historical  Society  of  New  York.  He  became  the  object 
of  universal  curiosity,  and  his  bold  stroke  was  celebrated  as  if  it 
had  been  a  great  victory.  In  the  midst  of  this  concert  of  praises 
not  a  single  protesting  voice  was  raised,  and  yet  the  unanimity 
was  only  apparent.  In  countries  called  democratic — that  is  to 
say,  where  popular  opinion,  that  of  the  masses,  is  freely  expressed 
and  exercises  in  one  way  or  other  an  irresistible  influence — the 
excitement  of  the  moment  at  first  carries  evervthing  before  it, 
and  causes  all  discordant  voices  to  be  silent.  But  if  such  a  coun- 
try should  possess  at  the  same  time  truly  liberal  institutions,  men 
of  enlightened  and  reflecting  minds,  after  having  maturely  formed 
their  opinions,  obtain  an  ascendency  in  the  end.  Such  minds, 
deeply  imbued  with  the  sound  political  traditions  of  their  coun- 
try, were  not  rare  in  America,  and  only  awaited  an  opportunity 
to  make  the  people  listen  to  the  counsels  of  true  patriotism. 
Aside  from  this,  Wilkes  himself  was  not  dazzled  by  appearances ; 
he  was  preparing  to  justify  his  course  at  a  moment  when  no  one 
had  yet  dared  to  cast  any  blame  upon  him.  He  made  a  report 
to  the  government,  in  which  he  endeavored  to  demonstrate  the 
legality  of  the  arrest  of  the  Confederate  commissioners,  citing 
precedents  and  referring  to  the  opinions  of  his  favorite  authors. 


468  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

lu  liis  effort  to  sustain  tliis  view  he  unquestionably  displayed  the 
skill  of  a  jurist. 

The  news  of.  the  insult  offered  to  the  national  flag  naturally 
caused  much  indignation  in  England.     The  Avhole  nation  felt 
outraged  by  the  violation  of  the  right  of  asylum,  of  which  it  is 
so  justly  jealous ;  it  shared  the  feelings  experienced  by  the  passen- 
gers of  the  Trent  when  they  saw  the  deck  of  the  vessel  occupied 
by  Federal  soldiers.     There  was  no  discussion  as  to  texts  or  pre- 
cedents ;  all  the  vexations  to  which  the  British  navy  had  subjected 
neutrals  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  when  it  was 
playing  the  part  of  a  belligerent,  were  forgotten.     The  enemies  of 
the  American  republic,  specially  numerous  among  the  rich  classes, 
encouraged  those  sentiments  to  gratify  their  own  hatred.     They 
had  a  leader  in  the  prime  minister.  Lord  Palmerston,  who,  not- 
withstanding his  sagacity,  allowed  himself  more  than  once  dur- 
ing his  life  to  be  blinded  by  prejudice.     After  a  summary  and 
partial  investigation,  the  law  advisers  of  the  Cro^vn  had  pronounced 
the  seizure  of  the  Confederate  commissioners  illegal.     The  Brit- 
ish government  acted  at  once  as  if  it  had  already  been  at  war 
with  the  United  States.     The  moderate  counsels  of  a  few  emi- 
nent men  were  not  listened  to ;  moreover,  the  government  care- 
fully concealed  from  the  public  the  existence  of  a  despatch  from 
"Washington,  written  immediately  after  the  arrival  of  Wilkes,  in 
which  might  have  been  seen  the  sure  pledge  of  a  friendly  settle- 
ment.     Indeed,  the  cabinet  of  the  White  House  declared  that 
the  commander  of  the  San  Jacinto  had  acted  without  instruc- 
tions, and  that  it  was  ready  to  discuss  the  question  regarding  the 
legality  of  the  seizure.*     The  British  government  only  sought 
to  make  a  parade  of  its  power.     It  prohibited  the  exportation  of 
powder,  military  preparations  were  made  with  feverish  activity, 
and  a  large  body  of  troops  was  embarked  in  haste  for  Canada. 
The  Guards,  who  have  the  noble  privilege  of  taking  part  in  all  im- 
portant wars,  were  the  first  to  start.     These  troops  went  on  board 
the  vessels  playing  an  air  well  known  in  America — "  I  am  off  to 
Charleston''^ — for  they  thought  they  ^vere  going  to  assist  the  Con- 
federates.    The  latter  were  already  looking  out  for  them  as  their 

*  Mr.  Seward  to  Mr.  Adams,  November  30,  1861. 


PORT  ROYAL.  469 

saviours,  and  beheld  in  that  terrible  crisis  the  certain  fulfilment 
of  their  hopes. 

There  were  two  men  who,  by  a  single  imprudent  word,  might, 
at  that  critical  moment,  have  caused  irreparable  mischief:  these 
were  Lord  Lyons,  British  minister  at  Washington,  and  Mr. 
Adams,  the  American  minister  in  London.  They  both  evinced 
a  tact  and  a  moderation  for  which  their  fellow-citizens  ought  to  be 
extremely  grateful.  They  had  the  Atlantic  for  their  auxiliary, 
which,  by  rendering  communication  between  the  two  countries 
impossible  for  fifteen  days,  gave  both  parties  ample  time  for  sober 
reflection.  At  a  later  period  Mr.  Adams  told  the  author,  who 
happened  to  be  then  in  Washington,  that  if  the  Transatlantic 
cable  had  been  in  existence  at  that  time  war  would  have  been 
inevitable. 

The  point  of  law  so  irrelevantly  raised  by  Captain  Wilkes  may 
be  summed  up  in  a  few  words.  From  the  day  when  England 
became  the  first  naval  power  in  the  world  she  asserted  the  right 
of  belligerent  vessels  to  search  the  ships  of  neutrals  and  to  seize 
enemies'  property.  It  was  by  resisting  this  pretension  that  the 
continental  States  and  America  laid  the  foundation  of  modern 
maritime  law.  England  was  at  last  obliged  to  renounce  that  claim 
by  the  treaty  of  Paris  in  1856 — a  treaty  to  which  the  United  States 
refused  to  become  a  party,  but  only  on  account  of  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  blockade  system.  The  great  principle  that  the  flag 
covers  the  merchandise  was  solemnly  acknowledged,  and  the  only 
exception  made  was  against  vessels  which  should  attempt  to  force 
a  regular  blockade,  and  against  those  engaged  in  carrying  contra- 
band of  war  to  a  belligerent.  This  principle  had  found  nowhere 
more  zealous  supporters  than  in  the  statesmen  of  America.  After 
invoking  the  doubtful  precedent  of  a  minister  arrested  in  a  for- 
eign land  during  the  war,  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
Captain  Wilkes  endeavored  to  justify  the  arrest  of  the  Confed- 
erate commissioners  by  assimilating  them  and  the  despatches  of 
which  they  were  the  bearers  to  contraband  of  war.  He  acknow- 
ledged that  to  keep  strictly  within  the  bounds  of  the  law  he 
should  have  also  seized  the  vessel  which  carried  the  commission- 
ers, and  brought  her,  with  her  pretended  contraband,  before  a  Fed- 
eral prize-court  for  adjudication.   His  excuse  for  not  having  done 


470  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

so  was  that  he  had  acted  out  of  consideration  for  the  passengers. 
Unfortunately  for  him,  he  did  not  seize  the  despatches,  which  had 
been  saved  by  Mi-s.  Slidell.  But,  in  any  case,  his  theory  does  not 
seem  tenable;  the  assimilation  of  the  commissioners  to  contra- 
band of  war  was  false,  and  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
seizure  was  made  rendered  it  illegal.  In  fact,  no  merchandise 
whatever  becomes  contraband  of  war  except  by  virtue  of  its  des- 
tination ;  thus  it  is  that,  since  the  invention  of  steam,  coal  has 
been  classified  in  that  category ;  guns,  ammunition,  articles  of 
equipment,  coke,  are  not  liable  to  seizure  unless  the  captor  can 
prove  that  they  were  intended  for  a  hostile  port  or  fleet.  The 
destination  of  the  vessel  which  carries  such  goods  can  alone  give 
them  that  character ;  and  if  they  are  transported  in  good  faith 
from  one  neutral  port  to  another  neutral  port,  they  are  covered  by 
the  flag.  Without  this  restriction,  every  belligerent  could  inter- 
cept the  commerce  of  the  whole  world ;  as,  for  instance,  it  would 
suffice  for  China  and  Russia  to  be  at  war,  to  justify  the  latter  in 
searching  and  seizing  every  ship  engaged  in  carrying  arms,  and 
even  coal,  between  France  and  England.  The  Confederate  com- 
missioners, therefore,  could  not  be  assimilated  to  contraband  of 
war,  because,  their  hostile  character  being  inherent  in  them,  there 
was  no  occasion  for  making  the  essential  distinction  in  regard  to 
destination,  as  in  the  case  of  merchandise ;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
the  seizure  of  all  the  contraband  of  war  on  board  the  Trent,  and 
the  arraignment  of  that  vessel  before  a  prize-court,  would  have 
been  illegal,  because  her  destination  was  in  reality  from  one  neu- 
tral port  to  another  neutral  port. 

Some  persons,  thinking  that  it  would  be  of  importance  to  the 
whole  world  to  have  these  principles  asserted  by  America  on  so 
important  an  occasion,  asked  the  Federal  government  to  take  the 
initiative ;  they  proposed  that  it  should  take  advantage  of  the  fact 
that  Captain  Wilkes  had  acted  without  instructions,  to  disavow 
the  act  before  England  should  make  any  demand  regarding  the 
matter.  But  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  preserved  a  prudent  silence  on 
that  subject,  did  not  at  first  deem  it  expedient  to  brave  public 
opinion.  To  those  who  represented  to  him  the  danger  which 
would  be  incurred  in  allowing  the  public  to  become  exasperated, 
and  th«i  impossibility  for  America  to  support  at  once  a  civil  war 


PORT  ROYAL.  471 

and  a  foreign  war,  he  replied  with  one  of  those  anecdotes  he  ex- 
celled in  telling.  "  My  father,"  he  said,  "  had  a  neighbor  from 
whom  he  was  only  separated  by  a  fence.  On  each  side  of  that 
fence  there  were  two  savage  dogs,  who  kept  running  backward 
and  forward  along  the  barrier  all  day,  barking  and  snapping 
at  each  other.  One  day  they  came  to  a  large  opening  recently 
made  in  the  fence.  Perhaps  you  think  they  took  advantage  of 
this  to  devour  each  other?  Not  at  all;  scarcely  had  they  seen  the 
gap,  when  they  both  ran  back,  each  on  his  own  side,  with  their 
tails  between  their  legs.  These  two  dogs  are  fair  representatives 
of  America  and  England." 

The  demands  of  England  came  at  last.  They  exacted  a  formal 
apology  and  the  immediate  release  of  the  prisoners.  It  was  ex- 
pedient to  decide  at  once.  The  counsels  of  wise  policy  and  true 
patriotism  prevailed  at  Washington.  The  government  frankly 
adopted  the  course  it  intended  to  pursue,  and  instructed  the  Secre- 
tary of  State,  Mr.  Seward,  to  inform  Lord  Lyons  that  the  Con- 
federate commissioners  -should  be  released.  The  clever  secretary 
found  means  to  present  that  declaration  in  a  manner  which  satis- 
fied both  the  self-love  of  his  fellow-citizens  and  the  demands  of 
England.  In  that  despatch  he  explained  at  length  all  the  causes 
which  justified  Captain  Wilkes,  according  to  the  traditional  pol- 
icy of  England,  and  only  acknowledged  that  the  fact  of  not  hav- 
ing brought  the  Trent  before  one  of  the  prize-courts  constituted 
an  illegal  act  which  rendered  it  impracticable  to  justify  the  seiz- 
ure ;  that  the  Federal  officer  had  erred  from  motives  of  humanity. 
Mr.  Seward  covered  his  retreat  by  congratulating  himself  on  find- 
ing one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  American  policy  thus 
vindicated  by  England.  To  view  matters  in  such  a  light  was 
certainly  an  unexpected  success. 

The  American  public,  who,  the  evening  before,  seemed  un- 
willing to  listen  to  any  proposition  looking  to  the  release  of 
the  prisoners,  received  the  decision  of  the  cabinet  with  a  feeling 
of  relief  fully  shared  by  England.  Both  sides  had  had  time  for 
reflection.  Each  had  calculated  the  disasters  which  the  threatened 
war  would  inflict  upon  the  two  nations,  and  this  reflection  had  the 
most  salutary  effect  upon  their  subsequent  relations.  Peace  be- 
tween them  was  consolidated  by  the  very  dangers  they  had  in- 


472  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

curred  ;  and  when  the  Confederate  commissioners  landed  in  Eng- 
land in  January,  they  were  received  with  an  indijfference  which 
showed  them  how  fruitless  their  mission  was  to  be.  They  were 
even  reproaclied  for  the  premature  delight  their  associates  had  ex- 
hibited when  war  seemed  inevitable. 

A  portion  of  the  troops  who  had  embarked  in  England  for 
Canada  had  not  yet  arrived  when  the  commissioners  left  Fort 
Warren.  Mr.  Seward  took  advantage  of  this  delay  to  wind  up 
the  negotiation  with  one  of  those  strokes  of  wit  which  that  humor- 
ous  statesman  never  failed  to  launch  at  his  opponents.  He  has- 
tened to  inform  the  British  consul  at  Portland,  Maine,  that  the 
English  troops  would  be  allowed  to  land  at  that  port,  and  pass 
freely  through  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  to  avoid  the  New 
Brunswick  route — impeded  by  snow  and  ice  at  that  season — on 
their  way  to  Canada. 

We  have  reached  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  the  long  war  the 
narrative  of  which  we  have  undertaken.  It  terminated  contrary 
to  the  expectations  of  both  parties,  without  securing  to  either  of 
them  a  decided  superiority.  It  had  dissipated  many  illusions. 
Nothing  but  new  sacrifices  and  additional  sufferings  were  in  pros- 
pect for  the  year  1862.  The  struggle,  the  importance  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  which  no  one  had  foreseen  at  the  commencement,  was 
daily  increasing  in  proportions.  But  both  parties  were  preparing 
for  the  issue  with  equal  determination  of  purpose.  Everything 
was  put  in  operation  to  raise  and  equip  larger  armies  than  those 
which  had  been  fighting  before.  The  people  of  the  North  and  of 
the  South,  with  this  purpose  in  view,  submitted  to  the  severest 
measures,  and  those  most  contrary  to  their  habits  of  life.  We 
shall  find  them  at  work  in  the  following  chapters. 

The  British  Government  refused  these  offers,  whicli,  hy  the  bye,  were  some- 
what perfidious,  as  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  them  to  prevent  the  deser- 
tion of  their  soldiers,  who  would  have  been  seduced  from  their  allegiance  by  the 
large  bounties  and  high  ])ay  allowed  to  the  American  volunteers. — Author's 
Note. 


BOOK  Y.— THE   FIRST   WINTER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  FIRST  WINTER.— DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE. 

THE  new  Southern  Confederacy,  notwithstanding  the  false  im- 
pressions its  first  victory  had  created,  found  itself  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year  1862  strongly  organized  for  the  defence  of  a 
territory  which  comprised  nearly  all  the  slave  States.  The  South 
persuaded  herself,  as  she  had  persuaded  Europe,  that  all  the 
efforts  of  her  adversaries  could  not  prevail  against  her  resistance. 

In  fact,  the  North  had  only  been  able  to  wrest  from  her  an  in- 
significant portion  of  territory  compared  with  the  entire  extent  of 
her  domain.  Of  the  whole  slave  territory,  the  North  only  occu- 
pied Maryland,  Western  Virginia,  some  parts  of  Kentucky,  the 
greater  portion  of  Missouri,  and  certain  positions  along  the  coast. 
But  time  had  enabled  her  to  display  her  resources,  and  the  war 
was  about  to  assume  new  proportions.  The  volunteers,  flocking 
from  all  parts,  were  being  organized  on  the  borders  of  the  Poto- 
mac, the  Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi  into  large  armies. 

We  shall  deal  first  with  those  which  were  about  to  operate 
west  of  the  Alleghanies.  As  we  have  seen,  these  were  divided 
into  three  distinct  corps.  One,  under  General  Curtis,  in  Mis- 
souri, had  drawn  close  to  the  Arkansas  frontier,  towards  the  end 
of  the  year.  The  second,  under  General  Grant,  guarded  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  the  mouth  of  the  Tennessee  at  Cairo  and  Paducah. 
The  third,  under  General  Bucll,  operated  in  Kentucky,  with  its 
centre  near  Elizabethtown.  The  first  two  were  under  the  chief 
command  of  General  Halleck,  a  wise  officer,  with  fine  organizing 
abilities,  but  who  was  accused  of  too  frequently  thwarting  the  de- 
signs of  his  subordinates,  and  of  leaving  them  afterwards  to  carry 
out  in  presence  of  the  enemy  the  plans  of  campaign  he  had  elab- 
orated in  his  office. 

These  armies  were  to  find  a  new  auxiliary,  whose  power  was 
beginning  to  be  appreciated,  in  the  fleet  which  was  being  fitted 
out  on  the  Ohio  and  the  Upper  Mississippi.     Two  remarkable 

473 


474  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

men,  both  of  whom  were  to  succumb  under  the  effect  of  the 
wounds  received  while  leading  that  fleet  against  the  enemy,  Com- 
modore Foote  and  Colonel  EUet,  had  superintended  its  forma- 
tion with  all  the  ardor  of  their  patriotism  and  all  the  resources 
of  their  inventive  min^s.  We  shall  relate  elsewhere  how  they 
gathered  this  fleet  upon  the  hitherto  peaceful  waters  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi ;  the  services  it  rendered  to  the  Federal  armies  will  ap- 
pear in  every  line  of  this  narrative.  That  fleet  was  divided  into 
three  categories:  1st.  The  gun-boats, some  of  them  being  old 
ships  more  or  less  adapted  for  military  service,  and  most  of  them, 
thinly  plated;  the  others  were  of  new  construction;  they  all  car- 
ried powerful  guns ;  were  manned  by  sailors,  and  commanded 
by  the  brave  Foote.  2d.  The  rams,  the  creation  of  Colonel  Ellet, 
formed  a  separate  division,  organized  by  the  War  Department, 
and  manned  by  land-troops.  3d.  The  transport-ships,  which 
were  large  Mississippi  passenger-boats  bought  or  hired  by  the 
quartermaster  for  the  conveyance  of  troops. 

The  facilities  afforded  by  this  fleet  for  the  movement  of  armies 
naturally  indicated  the  West,  and  in  the  West  the  courses  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Tennessee,  as  destined  to  be  the  theatre  of  the 
first  military  operations  of  1862.  This  calculation  had  formed 
the  basis  of  the  general  plan  drawn  up  by  General  McClellan  for 
the  beginning  of  the  year.  It  was,  however,  in  Eastern  Ken- 
tucky that  the  struggle  was  renewed  at  first ;  and  the  successes 
which  the  Federals  achieved  there  would  have  caused  them  to 
modify  their  plan  if  the  force  of  events  had  not  obliged  them  to 
adhere  to  it. 

We  have  stated  that  the  Confederate  line  of  defences  in  Ken- 
tucky rested  upon  Columbus  at  the  west,  upon  Bowling  Green  in 
the  centre,  and  at  the  east  upon  the  group  of  mountains  from 
which  the  Cumberland  springs  to  enter  the  plain.  The  first  two 
points  had  become  important  military  posts ;  another  was  estab- 
lished to  cover  the  third.  The  position  of  Mill  Springs,  south  of 
Somerset,  had  been  selected  for  that  purpose,  because  it  was  near 
the  river  at  the  place  where  it  begins  to  be  navigable.  The  un- 
ssuccessful  attempts  of  the  Federals  at  Pikeville,  and  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Cimiberland  Gap,  had  taught  their  adversaries  that  they 
had  nothing  to  fear  on  that  side,  and  that  any  expedition  directed 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  475 

upon  East  Tennessee  would  have  to  bear  more  to  the  westward,  to 
follow  the  open  country  and  avoid  the  defiles  of  the  Cumberland 
Mountains.  It  would  be  obliged,  after  crossing  the  river,  to  take 
either  the  Jacksborough  road  through  Williamsburg,  or  that  of 
Jamestown  (Tennessee)  by  way  of  Monticello.  The  entrenched 
camp  at  Mill  Spring,  near  this  last  town,  covered  them  both. 

The  first  battle  was  to  be  fought  more  to  the  east,  among  the 
gorges  of  the  chain  which  separates  Kentucky  from  Virginia. 
Since  the  month  of  November,  one  of  the  small  Confederate  corps 
which  occupied  that  chain  had  returned  to  Piketon,  of  which 
place,  as  we  have  seen,  Nelson  had  for  a  while  taken  possession. 
This  corps  was  commanded  by  Colonel  Humphrey  Marshall, 
whose  name,  celebrated  in  Kentucky  since  the  Mexican  war,  had 
drawn  a  large  number  of  ardent  and  adventurous  young  men  to 
his  standard.  But  unwieldy  from  excessive  obesity,  Humphrey 
Marshall  in  1862  was  no  longer  the  brilliant  colonel  of  cavalry 
whom  we  saw  fighting  at  Buena  Vista  by  the  side  of  his  friend 
Jefferson  Davis.  His  troops,  numbering  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred men,  were  stationed  at  Prestonburg,  and  stretched  as  far  as 
Paintsville,  in  the  valley  of  the  West  Big  Sandy  River. 

Notwithstanding  the  season,  so  rigorous  in  the  mountains,  a 
Federal  brigade,  under  Colonel  Garfield,  was  sent  to  dislodge 
him.  Garfield  occupied  George  Creek,  on  the  West  Big  Sandy, 
where  he  could  obtain  his  supplies  by  water.  He  started,  on  the 
7th  of  January,  with  two  thousand  infantry,  four  hundred  horses, 
and  a  few  field-pieces,  and  carrying  three  days'  provisions.  On 
being  informed  of  his  approach,  Humphrey  Marshall  abandoned 
Paintsville  and  fell  back  upon  Prestonburg,  leaving  a  few  hundred 
men  to  cover  his  retreat  upon  Tenny's  Creek,  which  could  be  easily 
defended.  The  Federal  cavalry,  and  a  few  companies  of  infantry 
that  accompanied  it,  encountered  this  rear-guard  of  the  enemy  on 
the  7th  of  January,  and  attacked  it  without  waiting  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  troops ;  the  Confederates  were  put  to  flight  after 
losing  a  few  of  their  men.  Being  obliged  to  replenish  his  supply- 
train  before  going  farther,  Garfield  took  the  Prestonburg  road 
on  the  9th  of  January  with  about  one  thousand  five  hundred  men. 
On  the  following  morning  he  encountered  all  the  forces  of  Mar- 
shall j)osted  along  the  right  bank  of  a  little  tributary  of  the  Big 


476  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Sandy  called  Middle  Creek,  which  the  recent  rains  had  swollen. 
The  Confederates  occupied  a  semicircular  hill,  the  two  extremities 
of  which  rested  upon  the  stream.  They  had  posted  their  four 
field-pieces  on  the  left,  and  concealed  their  centre,  in  order  to 
draw  the  Federals  towards  that  point  and  take  them  between  two 
fires.  Garfield  did  not  fall  into  that  snare.  Sending  out  a  swarm 
of  skirmishers,  he  compelled  the  enemy  to  discover  himself,  and 
as  soon  as  he  had  reconnoitred  his  positions  he  sent  a  few  hun- 
dred men  to  turn  his  left  by  crossing  the  stream  near  its  mouth. 
After  a  brisk  engagement  the  Federal  detachment  took  possession 
of  a  height  which  commanded  the  positions  of  the  Confederates. 
Garfield  then  gave  the  signal  of  attack  to  his  right.  The  Confed- 
erates, being  caught  in  their  turn  between  two  fires,  began  to  fall 
back.  A  timely  reinforcement  made  success  certain  for  the  Fed- 
erals, and  night  alone  prevented  them  from  dislodging  Marshall 
from  all  the  heights  he  had  endeavored  to  defend.  The  Confed- 
erate general  took  advantage  of  the  darkness  to  retire  in  great 
haste,  abandoning  his  depots  of  provisions,  his  wounded,  and  the 
little  town  of  Prestonburg.  The  battle  of  Middle  Creek  cost  him 
about  sixty  killed  and  one  hundred  wounded ;  the  Federals  had 
only  twenty-seven  men  disabled.  Their  suceess  was  complete  but 
barren,  because,  not  being  able  to  subsist  at  Prestonburg,  they 
were  soon  compelled  to  return  to  Paintsville.  No  decisive  opera- 
tions were  possible  in  that  region. 

It  was  some  time  after  the  check  he  had  experienced  at  Wild 
Cat  camp,  that  Zollicoffer,  leaving  Barboursville,  had  proceeded 
to  occupy  the  important  position  of  Mill  Spring.  Mr.  Davis, 
although  displeased  with  him,  had  not  dared  to  dismiss  him  from 
the  service  on  account  of  the  popularity  he  enjoyed  in  Kentucky, 
but  he  had  been  placed  under  the  command  of  General  Critten- 
den. The  latter  presented  a  sad  example  of  the  domestic  con- 
vulsions which  followed  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war.  His 
father,  an  old  gentleman  justly  respected  throughout  America, 
was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington, 
and  his  brother  held  the  rank  of  general  in  the  Federal  army. 
The  coraaiand  which  had  been  conferred  upon  Crittenden  at  the 
end  of  December  gave  him  about  ten  thousand  men ;  he  had  con- 
veyed part  of  his  forces  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Cu  mberland  and 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  477 

fortified  the  position  of  Beach  Grove,  in  front  of  Mill  Springs, 
but  the  nature  of  the  ground  had  obliged  him  to  extend  his  works 
in  such  a  manner  that  the  troops  at  his  disposal  were  not  sufficient 
to  defend  them.     Beach  Grove  could  nevertheless  be  made  the 
base  of  operations  of  a  Confederate  army  which  might  penetrate 
into  the  heart  of  Kentucky  by  avoiding  the  formidable  positions 
of  Wild  Cat  camp.     Buell,  therefore,  had  ordered  General  Schopf 
to  occupy  the  small  town  of  Somerset,  whence  he  could  watch  the 
Confederates  and  oppose  their  march.     In  the  beginning  of  Jan- 
uary he  determined  to  prevent   that  march,  and    sent   General 
Thomas  from  Louisville  with  one  of  the  four  divisions  of  the 
army  of  Kentucky  to  join  Schopf  and  dislodge  the  Confederates 
from  their  positions  on  the  Cumberland   River.      Thomas  left 
his  cantonments  at  Lebanon,  where  he  formed  the  left  wing  of 
the  army  assembled  on  the  road   from  Louisville  to  Bowling 
Green,  and  the  heads  of  his  column  arrived  on  the  17th  of  Jan- 
uary at  Logan  Cross-roads,  an  intersection  only  sixteen  kilome- 
tres distant  from  Beach  Grove.      The  road  which  leads  from 
Somerset   to  Montlcello   becomes  separated  at  this  point  from 
those  running  In  a   westerly  direction    towards   Columbia   and 
Jamestown  (Kentucky).     Thomas  thus  threatened  to  occupy  the 
borders  of  the  Cumberland  below  Mill  Springs.     It  was  by  this 
river  that  Crittenden  received  part  of  his  supplies,  for  the  Cum- 
berland Gap  road  was  too  long  and  too  difficult  to  bring  him  the 
necessary  provisions  for  his  nine  or  ten  thousand  men  from  East 
Tennessee.     Fearing  lest  he  should  be  cut  off  on  that  side,  or  be 
attacked  in  a  position  too  extended  for  the  number  of  his  sol- 
diers,  Crittenden    resolved    to    forestall    the    movements    of  his 
adversary.      He   started   for  Logan   Cross-roads   with   the  two 
brigades   of    Zollicoffer    and    Carroll    and    a   battery   of    artil- 
lery, forming  all  together  an  effective  force  of  from  five  to  six 
fhousand.     He  was  in   hopes  of  surprising  Thomas  before  the 
latter  had  been  able  to  effect  a  junction  with  Schopf,  and  collect  all 
his  forces,  which  had  been  delayed  by  the  bad  condition  of  the 
roads.     But  the  Federal  general  had  been  joined  on  the  18th  by 
a  portion  of  his  troops,  and  had  been  apprised  of  the  movements 
of  the  enemy  in  the  course  of  the  following  night.      He  was, 
therefore,  on  his  guard  and  prepared  at  all  points  to  receive  his 


478  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

attack.  He  occujsled  Logan  Cross-roads  with  four  regiments, 
the  Ninth  Ohio,  Second  Minnesota,  Tenth  Indiana,  Fourth  Ken- 
tucky, and  a  Ijattery  of  artillery ;  the  brigade  of  Carter  was  only 
a  short  distance  oiF,  ready  to  support  him,  thus  swelling  the  total 
amount  of  his  forces  to  five  or  six  thousand  men,  about  equal  in 
number  to  those  of  the  enemy. 

The  latter  began  the  fight  at  an  early  hour  on  the  morning  of 
the  19th  of  January.  The  Federal  line,  formed  in  haste,  fell  back 
under  the  first  fire  of  the  Confederates ;  its  left  rested  upon  a  hill 
whose  summit  was  opened  and  exposed,  and  towards  which  Zollicof- 
fer,  who  led  his  brigade  valiantly,  directed  all  his  efforts.  It  was 
on  the  point  of  being  carried ;  but  the  brigade  of  Carter  having 
come  to  the  assistance  of  the  Federal  centre,  Thomas  detached 
Colonel  Fry  with  the  Fourth  Kentucky  from  that  portion  of  the 
line,  and  sent  him  to  the  left  to  support  the  Tenth  Indiana,  which 
the  enemy  was  driving  before  him.  His  timely  arrival  changed 
the  aspect  of  the  fight ;  the  belligerents  came  to  close  quarters, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  melee  Fry  met  General  Zollicoffer,  whom 
he  shot  dead  on  the  spot  with  his  pistol.  On  seeing  their  com- 
mander fall  the  Confederates  became  disconcerted  ;  and  the  Ninth 
Ohio,  which  formed  the  Federal  right,  seizing  the  favorable 
moment,  drove  them  back  in  disorder  upon  their  second  brigade. 
Crittenden,  who  had  displayed  great  courage,  tried  in  vain  to 
bring  back  once  more  the  chances  of  victory ;  his  line,  which  had 
been  for  an  instant  re-formed,  was  again  broken  by  the  brigade  of 
Carter.  The  volunteers  from  East  Tennessee,  who  composed  this 
brigade,  displayed  extraordinary  ardor.  The  Federals  pressed 
their  adversaries  on  every  side ;  they  had  the  impetus  which  a  first 
success  imparts,  and  nothing  could  resist  their  Onward  course. 
Two  cannon,  ninety  prisoners,  arms  and  equipments  of  every 
kind,  remained  in  their  hands ;  the  Confederates,  leaving  one  hun- 
dred dead  and  sixty  wounded  on  the  battle-field,  fled  in  disordef 
towards  their  entrenchments.  The  battle  of  Logan  Cross-roads, 
improperly  called  Mill  Springs,  only  lasted  a  few  hours,  and  cost 
the  Federals  thirty-eight  killed  and  one  hundred  and  ninety-four 
wounded  in  all.  Their  victory  was  complete.  On  the  same 
evening,  Thomas,  after  receiving  an  important  reinforcement  from 
Schopf,  appeared  before  the  works  of  Beach  Grove ;  but  darkness 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  479 

ha^  ing  supervened,  and  his  soldiers  having  eaten  nothing  since 
the  day  previous,  he  contented  himself  with  firing  a  few  cannon- 
shots  into  the  positions  of  the  enemy.  The  Confederates,  being 
entirely  disorganized,  were  unable  to  defend  them ;  they  crossed 
to  the  other  side  of  the  Cumberland  during  the  night,  destroying 
the  boats  which  carried  them  over,  and  afterwards  dispersing 
among  the  mountains  in  order  to  procure  food  and  to  escape 
from  all  pursuit.  On  the  morning  of  the  20th  the  Federals 
occupied  their  works  and  the  camps  adjoining  them ;  they  took 
possession  of  ten  field-pieces  and  more  than  one  thousand  five 
hundred  wagons.     The  Confederate  army  was  annihilated. 

During  this  short  campaign  Thomas  displayed  some  of  those 
military  qualities  which  at  a  later  period  made  him  conspicuous 
among  the  foremost  leaders.  But  he  had  to  rest  contented  with 
this  success ;  the  condition  of  the  roads  and  the  inclemency  of  the 
weather  rendered  all  pursuit  impossible.  Crittenden  had  retired 
by  way  of  Monticello  in  the  direction  of  Nashville,  and  part  of 
his  troops  had  gone  towards  Cumberland  Gap.  But  to  under- 
take to  rescue  East  Tennessee  from  Confederate  rule,  to  wrest 
from  them  the  salt-works  and  the  coal-fields  which  they  possessed 
in  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  would  have  required  an  army 
sufficiently  strong  and  well  provisioned  to  advance  alone  through 
a  difficult  country  without  fear  of  being  cut  off  or  surrounded. 
Agents  of  the  War  Department,  who  had  been  sent  on  special 
missions  into  Kentucky,  testified  to  the  impracticability  of  such 
an  enterprise,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Federals  had  to  be  directed 
elsewhere. 

We  have  stated  that  Columbus,  on  the  Mississippi,  and  Bow- 
ling Green,  in  the  centre  of  Kentucky,  were  the  two  points  upon 
which  the  Confederate  line  of  defence  rested.  Polk's  army,  oc- 
cupying Columbus,  closed  the  great  river  against  the  Federals. 
That  of  Sidney  Johnston,  at  Bowling  Green,  controlled  the  whole 
network  of  railways.  Between  these  two  points  two  large  water- 
courses, the  Tennessee  and  the  Cumberland,  ran  parallel  from 
south  to  north,  the  former  to  the  left,  the  latter  to  the  right,  and 
finally  emptied  into  the  Ohio,  one  at  Paducah,  the  other  at  Smith- 
land,  a  little  higher  up.  It  was  a  road  with  two  tracks,  open  in 
the  most  vulnerable  part  of  the  Confederate  line.     In  order  to 


480  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

command  its  entrance  they  had  erected  two  forts,  called  Henry 
and  Donelson.  The  first,  of  comparatively  small  dimensions,  was 
situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tennessee.  The  other,  about 
twenty  kilometres  south-south-eastward  of  that  point,  rested  upon 
the  left  bank  of  the  Cumberland,  near  the  village  of  Dover,  an 
important  station  of  the  great  railway  line  which  leads  from 
Bowling  Green  to  Columbus  and  Memphis ;  it  was  much  larger 
and  better  constructed  than  Fort  Henry.  They  were  so  placed  as 
to  command  the  two  rivers  and  the  narrow  strip  of  land  which 
separates  them.  They  were  connected  by  a  good  road  and  a  tel- 
egraph line,  which  enabled  their  garrisons  to  give  each  other 
mutual  support. 

These  positions  presented  a  powerful  line  of  defence,  but  they 
were  too  much  extended  for  the  forces  which  had  to  guard  them. 
It  is  difficult,  among  so  many  contradictory  statements,  to  form  a 
correct  estimate  of  the  number  of  those  forces.  According  to 
Confederate  historians,  the  total  number  could  not  have  exceeded 
thirty  thousand  men,  all  included ;  the  War  Department  at  Rich- 
mond rated  them  at  more  than  sixty  thousand  men.  Mr.  Steven- 
son, an  impartial  writer,  whom  we  have  already  quoted,  and  who 
was  employed  in  the  administrative  branches  of  that  army,  states 
that  in  the  month  of  January  they  received  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  rations.  Taking  all  deficiencies  into  considera- 
tion, and  making  ample  allowance,  even,  for  the  greatest  want  of 
order  in  the  distribution  of  those  rations,  such  a  figure  would  de- 
note at  least  the  presence  of  seventy  thousand  able-bodied  men. 
The  numerous  reports  of  Confederate  generals  gave  very  imper- 
fect indications  as  to  the  total  number  of  their  troops.  Such  dif- 
ferences, however,  should  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  the  irregu- 
lar corps,  such  as  the  militia  and  guerillas,  were  sometimes  in- 
cluded as  part  of  the  total  effective  force  of  the  army.  Deducting 
these  corps,  the  army  commanded  by  Sidney  Johnston  must  have 
numbered  more  than  fifty  thousand  and  less  than  sixty  thousand 
men.  This  was  a  small  force  with  which  to  exercise  a  surveillance 
at  once  over  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi.  Alarmed  by 
the  defeat  of  Crittenden  at  Mill  Springs,  Johnston  had  detached 
several  regiments  from  Bowling  Green  and  sent  them  into  East- 
ern Tennessee,  thus  raising  the  number  of  troops  posted  en  echelon 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  BIBGE.  481 

on  his  right  to  nearly  ten  thousand  men.  In  order  to  hold  in 
check  the  army  of  Buell,  who  had  pushed  his  outposts  as  far  as 
Green  River,  he  had  massed  about  thirty  thousand  men  in  the 
large  fortifications  of  Bowling  Green ;  Forts  Henry  and  Donelsoa 
were  occupied  by  four  or  five  thousand  men,  and  nearly  the  same 
number  were  stationed  among  the  small  posts  and  in  the  city  of 
Nashville.  His  left,  commanded  by  Polk,  and  subsequently  by 
Beauregard,  who  guarded  Columbus  and  the  Mississippi,  num- 
bered scarcely  ten  thousand  men.  The  Richmond  government 
had  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  representations  of  Johnston,  who  kept 
asking  for  reinforcements.  He  had  not  even  been  allowed  to 
carry  into  Kentucky  the  twelve  months'  volunteers  raised  by  the 
State  of  Tennessee.  Seeing  the  number  of  his  opponents  increase 
daily,  the  Confederate  general  understood  at  last  that  the  time 
was  approaching  when  his  line  would  be  pierced,  and  that,  in  order 
to  avoid  that  danger,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  assume  the  of- 
fensive. His  plan  of  campaign,  arranged  with  Beauregard,  was 
to  be  carried  out  in  the  early  part  of  February,  but  the  Federals 
did  not  give  him  time.  Grant's  command  had  been  extended 
and  his  forces  increased  by  large  additions  of  recruits.  General 
Halleck,  who  thought  he  had  found  in  him  a  modest  subordinate 
without  ambition,  favored  him  in  every  way,  while  Commodore 
Foote  was  ready  to  afford  him  the  powerful  co-operation  of  his 
flotilla. 

Towards  the  latter  end  of  January  a  column  of  a  few  thousand 
men  had  proceeded  as  far  as  within  sight  of  Columbus,  and,  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  the  Tennessee  in  returning,  had  reconnoitred 
all  the  intervening  space  between  that  river  and  the  Mississippi. 
About  the  same  time  Foote  and  General  C.  F.  Smith  appeared  in 
front  of  Fort  Henry  on  board  a  gun-boat,  and  examined  its  ap- 
proaches. Seated  upon  low  and  marshy  ground,  its  sides  pro- 
tected by  two  streams,  that  work  presented  the  appearance  of  an 
irregular  bastioned  pentagon.  It  had  an  armament  of  seventeen 
guns  placed  en  barbette,  twelve  of  which  pointed  towards  the 
river ;  so  that,  although  it  had  neither  masonry  nor  shelters,  it 
was  able  to  make  a  long  resistance  on  the  land  side.  But  the 
choice  of  its  position  proved  that  the  Confederate  engineers  had 
not  understood  the  true  principles  of  river  defence  in  America. 

Vol.  I.— 31 


482  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

In  placing  it  close  to  the  water's  edge  they  exposed  it  to  be  de- 
molished, like  the  forts  of  Hilton  Head,  by  the  large  Dahlgren 
shells,  while  its  guns  could  only  strike  the  sides  of  vessels  pro- 
tected by  iron  armor.  Experience  soon  taught  the  Confederates 
to  appreciate  the  superiority  of  works  constructed  on  elevated 
positions,  such  as  are  to  be  met  with  at  long  intervals  along  the 
line  of  American  rivers.  Indeed,  whenever  such  works  were  at- 
tacked by  Federal  vessels,  the  latter  suffered  cruelly  from  the 
plunging  fire,  which  easily  pierced  their  decks,  while  they  could 
not  raise  their  guns  to  a  sufficient  elevation  to  reach  the  interior 
of  the  enemy's  defences  at  good  range.  Finally,  on  the  opposite 
side  of  Fort  Henry  there  stood  an  unfinished  work,  the  fire  of 
which,  when  completed,  would  have  crossed  its  own.  Three  thou- 
sand Confederates  occupied  the  fort,  under  General  Tilghman. 

Towards  the  middle  of  January,  Grant  and  Foote  proposed  to 
Halleck  to  undertake  the  reduction  of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson 
by  land  and  water  at  once.  But  after  having  approved  their 
plan,  this  general  postponed  its  execution  from  day  to  day.  It 
required  the  most  urgent  solicitations  to  obtain  his  permission  to 
commence  the  campaign.  At  last,  on  the  2d  of  February,  Grant 
embarked  with  the  two  divisions  of  McClernand  and  C.  F.Smith 
on  several  of  those  large  steamers  resembling  floating  houses 
which  furrow  the  rivers  of  America.  The  first  division  and  one 
brigade  of  the  second  were  to  land  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ten- 
nessee, for  the  purpose  of  investing  Fort  Henry  and  cutting  off 
the  retreat  of  its  garrison.  The  other  two  brigades  were  ordered 
to  land  on  the  left  bank,  to  occupy  the  unfinished  works  to  be 
found  there,  and  to  assist  with  their  artillery  in  the  general 
attack.  Foote's  fleet  was  to  co-operate  energetically.  The  iron- 
clad vessels,  which  were  to  be  put  on  trial,  recalled  to  mind  from 
their  construction  the  floating-batteries  used  in  bombarding  Kin- 
burn.  They  were  very  broad,  with  flat  bottoms,  and  their  sheath- 
ing, sloping  inwards  at  an  angle  of  nearly  forty-four  degrees, 
was  covered  with  plates  of  iron  of  six  to  seven  centimetres  in 
thickness;  the  deck,  razeed  fore  and  aft,  presented,  above  the 
water-line,  surfaces  sloping  in  the  same  way  and  sheathed,  carry- 
ing two  or  three  guns.  They  were,  in  one  word,  redoubts  in  the 
shape  of  rectangular  pyramids  placed  on  low  hulls,  the  whole 


BONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  483 

being  moved  by  high-pressure  steam-engines.  The  mortar-boats 
were  mere  barges  intended  to  be  towed,  the  deck  of  which,  sur- 
rounded by  an  iron  \\q\\,  was  occuj^ied  by  a  single  mortar  of 
large  size,  measuring  eleven,  and  sometimes  thirteen,  inches  of 
interior  diameter.  The  ships  collected  to  form  the  flotilla  com- 
prised eight  mortar-boats,  a  certain  number  of  transports,  carry- 
ing a  few  guns,  and  several  iron-clad  vessels ;  but  among  the  lat- 
ter there  were  only  four  ready  for  use  at  the  end  of  January. 
They  formed,  including  three  steamers  not  iron  clad,  the  naval 
division  which  left  Cairo  on  the  2d  of  February,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Commodore  Foote,  at  the  same  time  as  the  vessels  with 
Grant's  troops. 

On  the  following  day  the  Federal  commodore  passed  from  the 
Ohio  into  the  Tennessee,  and  leisurely  ascended  the  latter  river, 
fishing  up  the  torpedoes  which  the  enemy  had  scattered  over  his 
course.  On  the  5th  of  February  the  whole  of  Grant's  troops 
were  landed  six  or  seven  kilometres  below  the  fort ;  the  positions 
of  the  enemy  had  been  carefully  reconnoitred,  and  the  fleet  was 
ready.  The  attack  was  fixed  for  the  day  following,  at  noon. 
Grant  had  intended  to  appear  before  the  fort  with  the  land  forces 
at  the  same  time  as  the  fleet ;  but  not  anticipating  the  difficulties 
of  the  road,  he  had  fixed  the  hour  of  departure  for  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  thus  missed  the  opportunity  of  taking  part  in 
the  battle.  General  Tilghman,  on  his  side,  was  aware  of  the  dan- 
ger which  threatened  him.  The  troops  under  his  command  were 
inexperienced  and  restless,  and  inspired  him  with  no  confidence. 
He  would  not  shut  them  up  in  the  fort,  which  the  inundation  had 
nearly  isolated  from  land ;  exposed  to  useless  losses,  they  would 
only  have  embarrassed  the  defence.  He  placed  them  on  a  height 
adjoining  the  fort,  and  then  shut  himself  inside  of  the  entrench- 
ments with  sixty  cannoneers  determined  like  himself  to  do  their 
duty.  Grant's  soldiers  had  been  delayed  on  their  march  for  sev- 
eral hours  by  the  unpropitious  weather  and  the  condition  of  the 
roads.  Foote,  who  had  vainly  asked  their  commander  to  give 
them  an  earlier  start,  did  not  wait  for  them  to  open  his  fire.  He 
thought  that  in  all  probability  this  cannonading  would  occupy 
and  detain  Tilghman's  troops  until  Grant  could  cut  off  their  re- 
treat.   But  the  four  iron-clads  having  approached  within  six  hun- 


484  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

dred  metres  of  the  fort,  they  soon  obtaineJ  a  manifest  superiority 
over  its  fire.  Its  best  guns  exploded,  while  others  were  dis- 
mounted. At  the  first  news  of  Grant's  march,  the  Confederate 
infantry  left  the  place  of  the  conflict,  of  which  they  had  remained 
spectators,  and  fled  in  disorder  towards  Dover  without  firing  a 
single  shot.  The  brave  Tilghman  still  tried  to  maintain  a  strug- 
gle so  unequal ;  but  the  shells  from  the  fleet  crushed  him  as  they 
had  crushed  the  defenders  of  Hatteras  and  Port  Royal.  He  was 
at  last  obliged  to  surrender  to  an  enemy  who  admired  his  valor. 
The  battle  only  lasted  one  hour  and  a  quarter. 

This  was  a  brilliant  success  for  Foote's  improvised  gunboats, 
and  an  earnest  of  the  important  part  they  would  play  in  the 
future.  Their  armor  had  protected  them  against  most  of  the 
enemy's  shot.  One  among  them,  however,  the  Essex,  had  its 
boiler  pierced  by  a  ball,  and  the  explosion  killed  and  wounded 
twenty-nine  men  upon  that  vessel  alone. 

Grant  only  arrived  in  time  to  take  possession  of  the  works 
which  had  been  captured  by  the  fleet.  The  garrison  had  escaped, 
it  is  true,  but  it  was  to  be  found  a  little  later  among  the  van- 
quished of  Fort  Donelson  ;  and  apart  from  that,  a  few  prisoners 
the  less  could  not  detract  from  the  great  result  which  had  just 
been  obtained — the  opening  of  the  Tennessee  to  the  Federal  fleet. 

The  latter  took  advantage  of  it  Avithout  delay.  On  that  same 
evening  it  destroyed  the  large  bridge  of  the  Bowling  Green  and 
Memphis  Railway ;  and  ascending  the  river  as  far  as  the  depth  of 
water  allowed,  it  proceeded  to  display  the  Federal  flag  in  the 
midst  of  the  Alabama  plantations  without  encountering  the  least 
opposition  on  its  route. 

This  first  success,  however,  was  only  a  beginning,  and  would 
lose  all  its  importance  if  Fort  Donelson  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  The  Confederates  might  at  any  moment  return 
thence  to  the  banks  of  the  Tennessee  for  the  purpose  of  occupy- 
ing and  fortifying  some  new  position,  which  would  again  close 
that  river  against  the  Federals.  The  importance  of  Fort  Donel- 
son was  equally  appreciated  by  both  Federals  and  Confederates. 
At  the  very  time  when  Sidney  Johnston  was  arranging  the  plan 
for  an  offensive  movement  with  Beauregard,  he  was  making  pre- 
parations for  evacuating  Bowling  Green,     Indeed,  it  was  well  to 


ro  <~;-   "  ^ 


'-     u  ^ 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  485 

have  foreseen  the  check  of  that  hazardous  movement,  as  the  posi- 
tion of  Bowlino;  Green  could  not  long;  be  defended  ag-ainst  Buell's 
army  after  it  had  lost  the  'point  d'appui  which  the  position  of 
Mill  Springs  afforded  it  on  the  extreme  right.  The  Federals, 
being  masters  of  the  Upper  Cumberland,  could  take  Bowling 
Green  completely  in  the  rear.  It  was,  therefore,  along  the  Cum- 
berland that  Johnston  had  to  look  for  a  new  line  of  defence  whose 
centre  should  be  at  Nashville ;  but  in  that  case  the  possession  of 
Fort  Donelson  became  the  much  more  important,  since  that  fort 
alone  was  able  to  stop  Federal  vessels  on  the  Cumberland  and 
protect  the  capital  of  Tennessee.  Consequently,  when  Grant  had 
broken  at  Fort  Henry  one  link  in  the  chain  upon  which  all  the 
system  of  his  adversary's  defences  rested,  the  latter  hastened  to 
repair  the  want  of  foresight  which  had  caused  this  weak  portion 
of  his  line  to  be  neglected.  While  his  materiel,  followed  by  the 
bulk  of  his  army,  was  gradually  proceeding  from  Bowling  Green 
towards  Nashville,  he  concentrated  all  his  available  forces  at  Fort 
Donelson.  General  Pillow,  the  same  who  as  division  commander 
in  Mexico  had  caused  so  much  trouble  to  General  Scott,  had 
joined  with  his  division  on  the  9tli  of  February  the  garrison  of 
Fort  Henry,  which  had  taken  refuge  in  Fort  Donelson  since  the 
rout  of  the  5th.  Buckner  with  his  division  from  Bowling  Green 
had  arrived  on  the  11th.  He  was  followed  on  the  12th  and  the 
13th  by  General  Floyd,  at  the  head  of  a  strong  brigade  of  Vir- 
ginians from  Russellville  and  Cumberland  City,  whither  those 
troops  had  retired  and  reorganized  after  their  defeat  in  West  Vir- 
ginia a  few  months  previously.  The  Confederates  did  wrong  to 
reward  the  criminal  services  Mr.  Floyd  had  rendered  them  whilst 
Secretary  of  War  in  Washington  by  entrusting  him  with  import- 
ant military  commands  ;  they  paid  dear  for  this  error.  Floyd 
took  command  of  the  little  army,  numbering  from  fifteen  to  six- 
teen thousand  men,  whose  mission  was  to  keep  Grant  in  check. 
After  having  determined  to  place  it  at  some  distance  above  Dover, 
so  as  to  harass  the  Federals  if  they  should  besiege  Fort  Donel- 
son, he  decided  at  the  last  moment  to  keep  the  whole  of  it  inside 
of  the  exterior  works  which  had  been  roughly  construfted  on  the 
surrounding  positions.  The  Federals  on  their  side  collected  all 
their  forces  in  order  to  strike  a  decisive  blow.     All  the  available 


486  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

troops  to  be  found  at  Cairo,  Paducali,  and, St.  Louis  were  hur- 
ried on  transports  for  the  purpose  of  joining  Grant,  while  sev- 
eral regiments  from  the  far  West — from  Iowa,  and  from  Nebraska 
— descended  the  Missouri  to  form  a  junction  with  them.  Buell's 
army  also  sent  reinforcements,  which,  after  amusing  the  Confed- 
erates at  Russellville,  not  far  from  Bowling  Green,  embarked  on 
Green  River,  a  tributary  of  the  Ohio,  and  came  down  this  latter 
river  as  far  as  Smithland,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Cumberland, 
where  they  joined  the  large  convoy  of  transports.  Some  of  the 
troops  who  had  appeared  before  Fort  Henry  also  re-embarked 
to  reach  Fort  Donelson  by  water.  There  remained  fifteen  thou- 
sand men  at  Fort  Henry,  who  were  re-formed  into  two  divis- 
ions under  McClernand  and  C.  F.  Smith,  and  with  these  Grant 
started  for  the  purpose  of  investing  by  land  the  positions  occu- 
pied by  Pillow.  Although  the  distance  was  only  about  twenty 
kilometres,  it  was  a  bold  movement,  for  Grant's  army  was  scarcely 
organized;  it  had  no  means  of  transporting  its  provisions  and 
ammunition,  and  many  regiments  were  without  the  necessary 
equipments  for  a  winter  campaign.  In  this  condition  the  Fed- 
erals were  about  to  attack  an  enemy  equal  to  them  in  number, 
posted  inside  of  works  carefully  constructed,  and  controlling 
the  river  which  secured  his  communications.  But  Grant  knew 
what  he  could  expect  from  the  hardy  men  of  the  West  who 
composed  his  army.  The  success  at  Fort  Henry  had  inspired 
them  with  great  confidence  in  the  fleet,  and  with  a  desire  not  to 
allow  themselves  any  longer  to  be  surpassed  by  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  important  not  to  allow  the  enemy  time  to  recover 
himself  and  to  concentrate  all  his  forces  around  Fort  Donelson. 
It  was  necessary  to  strike  quickly  in  order  to  threaten  Johnston's 
communications  on  the  side  of  Nashville,  and  not  to  permit  him 
to  cover  that  only  line  of  retreat  by  the  erection  of  new  works.  In 
short,  the  utter  inaction  of  the  garrison  of  Fort  Donelson,  which 
had  not  even  sent  a  single  horseman  to  watch  his  movements, 
caused  the  Federal  commander-in-chief  to  anticipate  the  mili- 
tary blunders  his  adversaries  were  about  to  commit;  it  may  be, 
also,  that,  being  aware  that  the  latter  were  commanded  by  Pillow, 
he  relied  upon  the  incapacity  of  that  individual,  proverbial  among 
his  companions  in  arms  of  the  Mexican  war.     On  the  12th  of 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  i87 

February  the  steamers,  which  had  remained  in  front  of  I'^ort 
Henry,  rapidly  descended  the  Tennessee,  with  instructions  to  turn 
back  wliatever  reinforcements  they  might  meet  on  their  way 
and  direct  them  to  rendezvous  at  Smithland.  On  the  same  day 
Grant  started  with  his  two  divisions ;  and  easily  driving  before 
him  Forrest's  cavalry,  which  had  at  last  come  to  watch  him,  he 
presented  himself  in  front  of  Fort  Done! son  during  the  afternoon 
at  the  moment  when  Floyd's  first  troops  were  landing. 

The  works  occupied  by  the  enemy  consisted  of  the  fort  proper^ 
a  redoubt  situated  a  little  higher  up,  and  a  strong  line  of  breast- 
works and  abattis,  which  had  been  hastily  constructed  since  the 
fall  of  Fort  Henry,  and  were  still  unfinished  at  certain  points. 
Differing  widely  from  Fort  Henry,  Donelson  was  much  better 
defended  on  the  river  than  on  the  land  side.  A  few  redoubts 
had  been  erected  close  to  the  water's  edge,  but  they  were  com- 
manded by  a  steep  acclivity  in  the  shape  of  a  semicircular  hill, 
on  the  summit  of  which  rose  powerful  batteries,  which,  owing  to 
a  curve  in  the  river,  commanded  its  course  to  a  great  distance, 
and  could  direct  a  plunging  fire  upon  any  vessels  that  should  ven- 
ture too  near  them.  But  on  the  land  side  the  same  works,  rest- 
ing upon  certain  undulations  of  ground  which  did  not  permit 
them  to  cross  their  fires,  were  commanded  by  other  heights,  more 
remote  from  the  river.  Consequently,  the  real  point  of  defence  of 
this  portion  of  the  line  lay,  not  in  the  fort,  notwithstanding  its 
numerous  and  powerful  guns,  but  in  the  exterior  works.  These 
works  described  a  large  semicircle  of  more  than  four  kilometres  in 
radius,  resting  their  two  extremities  upon  the  river.  Covered  at 
the  north  by  an  impassable  creek,  they  were,  for  the  most  part,  laid 
out  across  woods  which  were  only  cleared  by  the  abattis.  They 
were  redans  and  demi-lunes  constructed  of  earth  and  wood,  partly 
isolated,  and  partly  connected  by  breastworks  or  simple  trous  de 
loup.  They  formed  an  excellent  line  of  defence  for  a  small 
army ;  but  this  line  is  sometimes  liable  to  the  objection  of  being 
traced  half-way  up  the  hillsides,  thus  exposing  the  reserves 
placed  in  the  rear  along  their  flanks.  The  little  town  of  Dover 
was  comprised  within  this  enceinte.  * 

On  the  12th,  before  the  close  of  a  short  winter  day.  Grant's 
soldiers   had  invested   these   entrenchments,  which    bristled   on 


488  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

every  side  with  the  bayonets  of  the  enemy.  This  investment  on 
the  part  of  the  Federal  chief  was  a  new  act  of  daring ;  for  as  he 
was  obliged  to  envelop  the  enemy's  positions,  his  fifteen  thousand 
men  presented  a  very  slender  line,  while  his  adversary,  who  knew 
the  country,  with  forces  equal  to  his  own,  and  who  could  par- 
tially strip  most  of  his  works  of  their  soldiers,  was  free  to  con- 
centrate his  troops  upon  a  single  point,  to  pierce  that  line  by  a 
vigorous  eifort.  But  Grant  knew  how  to  conceal  his  weakness 
skilfully  from  an  enemy  whose  courage  was  already  shaken.  On 
the  day  following,  after  replying  for  some  time  to  the  artillery 
of  the  enemy  with  his  cannon,  he  ordered  the  entrenchments  within 
which  it  was  posted  to  be  attacked,  with  a  view  of  ascertaining 
its  strength,  if  he  could  not  succeed  in  carrying  them.  No  breach 
could  be  effected  in  the  Confederate  works.  But  on  the  extreme 
right — that  is  to  say,  on  the  side  of  Dover  and  above — the  vigor- 
ous attack  of  the  Federals  secured  to  them  at  least  positions 
closely  adjoining  those  of  the  enemy,  whence  they  could  con- 
stantly threaten  him. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  condition  of  Grant's  army  gave  its  chief 
considerable  anxiety.  The  ammunition  and  provisions  were  be- 
coming scarce,  for  no  distribution  had  been  made  to  rej)lace  what 
the  soldiers  had  brought  in  their  haversacks,  and  the  means  of 
transportation  scarcely  yet  existed  in  that  army.  The  enemy, 
master  of  the  other  side  of  the  river,  could  neither  be  blockaded 
nor  deprived  of  the  reinforcements  he  was  certainly  expecting. 
The  attack  which  had  just  been  made  proved  that  the  idea  of 
carrying  ihose  works  by  main  force  was  not  to  be  entertained, 
and  that  the  enemy  might  at  any  moment  ascertain  the  numeri- 
cal weakness  of  the  adversary  in  whose  presence  he  had  remained 
inactive  behind  his  parapets.  The  fleet,  which  was  expected  to 
bring  reinforcements  and  provisions,  was  not  in  sight,  and  all 
these  difficulties  were  still  further  increased  by  the  inclemency  of 
a  rigorous  climate.  A  heavy  fall  of  snow,  accompanied  by  ex- 
treme cold,  proved  a  terrible  ordeal  for  those  soldiers,  most  of 
whom  were  poorly  clad,  with  only  a  few  days'  experience  in  the 
field.  Among  those  who  had  provided  themselves  with  blankets, 
a  large  number,  bending  under  the  weight  of  an  unwonted  bur- 
den, and  deceived  by  the  mildness  of  the  first  day,  had  left  them 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  489 

behind  at  Fort  Henry  or  thrown  them  away  on  tlie  I'oad.  It  was 
a  night  of  suffering  in  the  two  camps,  but  especially  on  the  battle- 
ground, where  many  of  the  wounded,  lying  between  the  two  hos- 
tile camps,  had  not  been  removed  before  night.  On  the  following 
morning  nothing  but  frozen  corpses  were  found. 

But  on  that  morning  (February  14th)  the  sound  of  cannon 
upon  the  river  made  the  soldier  forget  the  sufferings  of  that  ter- 
rible night,  for  it  brought  the  certain  news  of  the  presence  of  the 
fleet,  which  had  arrived  the  evening  previous.  In  fact,  while 
Foote  with  one  of  his  gun-boats  was  drawing  the  fire  of  the  Con- 
federate batteries  to  show  their  strength,  as  he  had  been  directed 
to  do,  the  transports  were  landing,  out  of  reach  of  the  enemy's 
guns,  the  first  reinforcements  and  the  provisions  so  impatiently 
looked  for.  The  provisions  were  soon  distributed  by  the  army 
wagons,  which  hastened  to  the  river-side  to  obtain  them.  The 
reinforcements,  consisting  of  eleven  regiments,  or  about  five  thou- 
sand men,  were  hastily  formed  into  a  third  division,  the  command 
of  which  was  conferred  upon  General  L.  Wallace,  who  had  ar- 
rived at  the  same  time  from  Fort  Henry  with  his  brigade.  This 
division,  placed  between  McClernand,  who  held  the  right,  and 
Smith,  commanding  the  left,  enabled  the  Federals  to  present  a 
stronger  line  of  investment  to  the  enemy.  While  these  move- 
ments, always  difficult  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy,  were  taking 
place  in  Grant's  army,  and  rations  and  cartridges  were  being  dis- 
tributed, Foote  diverted  the  attention  of  the  Confederates  by  an 
attack  upon  the  batteries  which  commanded  the  course  of  the 
Cumberland.  He  could  not  hope  to  renew  the  brilliant  success 
of  Fort  Henry,  for  his  gun-boats,  which  had  been  considerably 
damaged  in  that  first  affair,  had  not  had  time  to  undergo  any  re- 
pairs, and  it  was  with  four  small  vessels  in  bad  condition  that  he 
now  exposed  himself  to  the  concentric  fire  of  batteries  armed  with 
powerful  guns,  the  range  of  which  had  been  carefully  studied  be- 
forehand by  their  gunners.  But  it  was  important  to  engage  the 
enemy's  attention  during  the  day  of  the  14th  at  all  hazards. 
Foote  drew  up  his  fleet  within  three  hundred  metres  of  the  Con- 
federate works,  and  for  the  space  of  one  hour  and  a  quarter  he 
sustained  an  unequal  contest  against  them.  There  was  even  a 
moment  when  his  daring  seemed  about  to  be  crowned  with  sue- 


490  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

cess.  Several  of  the  batteries  near  the  water  had  been  abandoned, 
while  only  a  few  out  of  the  twenty  guns  which  commanded  the 
river  were  still  served ;  and  if  Foote  had  been  able  to  avail  him- 
self of  this  momentary  silence  to  reascend  the  river,  he  could 
have  reached  a  place  whence,  by  enfilading  the  positions  of  the 
enemy,  he  would  have  rendered  them  untenable.  But  at  this 
critical  moment  his  two  best  gun-boats  were  disabled  by  two  suc- 
cessful shots,  which  shattered  the  rudder  of  one  and  one  of  the 
wheels  of  the  other,  and  both  were  soon  carried  far  away  from 
the  scene  of  action  by  the  force  of  the  current.  The  other  two, 
not  being  able  to  sustain  the  contest  alone,  were  drawn  oif  by 
Foote.  The  Federal  navy  was  taught  to  appreciate  the  difficul- 
ties it  would  encounter  on  the  large  rivers  wherever  the  enemy 
should  be  skilful  enough  to  take  advantage  with  his  fire  of  the 
nature  of  the  ground. 

The  fruitless  attacks  of  the  13th  and  14th  by  land  and  sea  had 
shown  that  if  the  enemy  knew  how  to  defend  the  positions  he  oc- 
cupied, it  would  be  necessary  to  resort  to  regular  operations.  As 
soon  as  Grant  saw  the  gun-boats  disabled  by  the  fire  of  the  Con- 
federate batteries,  he  determined  to  lay  siege  to  the  place,  think- 
ing that  the  very  slowness  of  the  operation  would  render  success 
more  certain  by  giving  time  for  the  arrival  of  the  numerous  rein- 
forcements which  had  been  promised  him. 

In  the  mean  time,  notwithstanding  the  double  check  experi- 
enced by  the  Federals,  there  was  nothing  but  trouble  and  confu- 
sion in  the  Confederate  camp,  especially  in  the  councils  of  their 
leaders.  They  had  suffered  less  from  cold  than  their  adversaries, 
inasmuch  as  the  troops  who  were  not  doing  guard-duty  in  the 
works  were  quartered  in  well-sheltered  barracks.  But  the  Fed- 
eral artillery  kept  up,  day  and  night,  a  regular  fire  of  shells, 
which,  without  doing  them  much  damage,  worried  them  ex- 
tremely. The  fugitive  garrison  of  Fort  Henry,  far  from  gather- 
ing courage  on  finding  itself  near  the  fresh  troops  assembled  at 
Fort  Donelson,  had,  on  the  contrary,  shaken  the  confidence  of  the 
latter  by  exaggerating  the  number  of  the  Federal  forces.  In 
short,  the  soldiers,  with  that  instinct  which  governs  them  every- 
where, had  soon  felt  that  they  were  not  properly  handled,  and 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  491 

had  discovered  the  incapacity  of  those  in  command,  in  spite  of 
pretentious  appearances. 

These  generals  had  committed  a  great  error  in  shutting  up  an 
army  of  fifteen  thousand  men  inside  of  works  where  they  could 
be  surrounded,  but  they  committed  a  still  more  grievous  blunder 
when  they  resolved,  on  the  14th,  to  open  a  passage  for  themselves 
through  Grant's  lines  by  main  force.  Such  a  hopeless  attempt 
should  have  been  made  before  the  arrival  of  the  fleet  and  the 
Federal  reinforcements.  The  investment  was  not  then  complete ; 
the  other  bank  of  the  river  was  still  free ;  steamers  could  have 
been  brought  from  Nashville  to  transport  the  army  to  the  other 
side  of  the  Cumberland ;  and  Grant's  attitude  was  a  sufficient 
guarantee  that  he  would  not  renew  the  assault.  Floyd  did  not 
even  take  the  trouble  of  informing  his  commander,  Johnston,  of 
his  position,  nor  of  asking  for  instructions.  It  was  decided  that 
Pillow  should  come  out  of  his  entrenchments  and  attack  the  ex- 
treme right  of  the  Federals  in  front  of  Dover,  while  Buckner 
should  make  strong  demonstrations  upon  the  rest  of  the  enemy's 
line.  As  soon  as  Pillow  had  opened  a  passage,  Buckner  was  to 
follow  him,  after  evacuating  the  fort  and  bringing  along  with 
him  as  much  materiel  as  possible,  and  then  he  was  to  form  the 
rear-CTuard  to  cover  the  march  of  the  armv  towards  Nashville. 

On  the  14th,  at  the  moment  when  this  plan  was  to  be  carried 
out,  after  the  fight  on  the  river,  an  unaccountable  caprice  prompted 
Pillow  to  defer  that  movement  till  the  folloAving  day.  This  was  a 
wilful  sacrifice  of  the  few  good  chances  which  yet  remained  to  the 
Confederates,  for  each  hour  added  strength  to  the  positions  which 
Grant  occupied  around  them.  Yet  these  positions,  taken  at  first 
somewhat  at  random,  were  not  all  well  selected,  and  the  Federals, 
not  yet  possessing  the  experience  which  they  subsequently  ac- 
quired, had  neglected  to  protect  themselves  by  means  of  abattis  and 
wooden  breastworks;  in  short,  being  exhausted  by  fatigue  and 
cold,  they  neglected  all  necessary  precautions.  Consequently, 
McClernand's  division  had  barely  time  to  get  under  arms,  when, 
at  early  dawn  on  the  15th,  Pillow's  eight  thousand  men  rushed  in 
close  column  upon  his  right.  This  portion  of  his  line,  formed  by 
the  brigade  of  McArthur,  had  not  been  able  to  extend  to  the 
river.     While  it  was  vigorously  resisting  the  first  attack,  Colonel 


492  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Baldwin,  who  commanded  the  first  of  Pillow's  brigades,  had  one 
of  those  inspirations  which  sometimes  decide  the  fate  of  a  battle. 
He  caused  part  of  his  troops  to  file  off  on  his  left  along  the  river : 
thanks  to  a  deep  ravine,  the  enemy  reached  McArthur's  flank  un- 
perceived,  and  threw  confusion  into  the  ranks  of  Oglesby's  brig- 
ade, which  formed  the  centre  of  McClernand's  division,  and  which 
the  Confederates  were  already  vigorously  pressing  in  front.  Being 
in  turn  attacked  in  flank,  it  fell  back  like  its  neighbor.  It  re- 
formed for  an  instant  near  the  third  brigade,  commanded  by  W. 
H.  Wallace.  But  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  their  officer^ 
and  their  own  persistency,  the  Federal  soldiers  did  not  succeed  in 
rallying  until  many  men  and  much  ground  had  been  lost.  At 
this  hour  Grant  had  not  yet  made  his  appearance  on  the  field  of 
battle.  Being  desirous  to  have  an  understanding  with  Foote  re- 
garding the  operations  of  the  siege  he  intended  to  undertake,  he 
had  gone  to  the  gun-boat  to  visit  the  brave  commodore,  who  had 
been  seriously  wounded  in  the  battle  of  the  day  previous.  But 
L.  Wallace,  who  was  encamj)ed  on  the  left  of  MoClernand,  and 
whom  the  noise  of  the  battle  had  already  roused,  hastened  to  send 
his  right  brigade,  commanded  by  Cruft,  to  the  aid  of  the  latter. 
This  brigade  arrived  on  the  field  of  battle  at  the  moment  when 
the  Confederates  were  bringing  new  forces  into  line.  Adhering 
to  the  plan  agreed  upon  the  evening  before,  Buckner  had  only  left 
in  the  entrenchments  he  occupied,  in  front  of  Smith,  such  troops 
as  were  strictly  required  for  their  occupancy,  and  had  followed 
Pillow  with  the  rest  of  his  division.  As  soon  as  Pillow  had  de- 
ployed his  forces  he  took  position  on  his  right ;  and  when  McAr- 
thur's and  Oglesby's  soldiers  began  to  lose  ground,  he  threw  a 
portion  of  his  men  upon  the  brigades  of  W.  Wallace,  which 
formed  the  left  of  McClernand,  and  of  Cruft,  who  had  come  to 
his  assistance.  The  Confederates  had  thus  far  succeeded  in  throw- 
ing their  entire  army  upon  the  flank  of  that  commanded  by  Grant, 
and  in  concentrating  the  efforts  of  more  than  twelve  thousand 
men  upon  the  positions  defended  by  scarcely  seven  or  eight 
thousand.  Pillow^,  who  had  followed  the  inspiration  of  Baldwin, 
outnumbered  the  right  of  the  Federals  more  and  more ;  he  brought 
his  regiments  into  action  one  after  another,  and  attacked  his  en- 
emies in  flank  as  fast  as  they  re-formed  to  fa/3e  the  fire  which  was 


BONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  493 

beginning  to  envelop  them.  He  was  already  master  of  all  the 
positions  which  had  been  occupied  at  first  by  McClernand  in  the 
morning.  He  had  opened  a  breach  which  was  to  be  the  salvation 
of  his  army,  and  he  felt  so  sure  of  victory  that  he  hastened  to 
communicate  the  news  to  Johnston  by  telegraph.  He  had  nothing 
more  to  do  than  to  push  his  troops  forward  to  gather  the  fruits 
of  his  first  success. 

A  portion  of  McClernand's  division  was  in  disorder;  a  few 
regiments  had  kept  their  ranks,  but  they  could  not  resist  the  onset 
of  superior  forces,  and  they  had,  moreover,  exhausted  all  their 
ammunition.  The  brigade  of  Cruft,  pressed  on  all  sides,  was 
falling  back  slowly.  L.  Wallace  found  himself  in  turn  over- 
powered on  his  right,  and  the  fugitives  who  were  already  crowd- 
ing in  his  rear  threatened  to  throw  his  ranks  into  confusion. 
What  had  been  left  of  his  division  was  rapidly  formed  en-potence  ; 
a  portion  faced  to  the  right  and  rallied  the  remnants  of  McCler- 
nand's division ;  the  other  part  was  drawn  in  front  of  the  enemy's 
entrenchments,  where  Buckner  was  massing  all  his  troops  for  the 
purpose  of  attacking  in  turn  and  widening  the  passage  which  had 
been  opened  by  Pillow.  At  this  junction  the  Confederate  leaders 
committed  an  error  which  was  irreparable.  Carried  away  by 
their  first  success,  they  desired  to  complete  the  victory ;  and  forget- 
ting that  their  object  should  have  been  to  escape  from  a  siege, 
they  only  thought  of  driving  back  the  right  and  centre  of  the 
Federals  upon  their  left  wing.  Full  of  mistaken  confidence, 
they  already  foresaw  the  moment  when,  driving  the  whole  of 
Grant's  army  upon  Smith's  division,  they  should  re-enter  their 
entrenchments  to  force  their  adversaries  back  upon  the  river  north 
of  Donelson.  These  fatal  illusions,  after  having  caused  them  to 
lose  much  precious  time  in  trying  to  force  their  way  through  the 
gap  they  had  opened,  were  quickly  dispelled.  Indeed,  Pillow  had 
exhausted  his  strength  in  the  fortunate  attack  he  had  just  made ; 
and  when,  following  up  his  success,  he  encountered  the  line  of  L. 
Wallace,  he  broke  down  before  the  resistance  of  a  single  regi- 
ment, the  First  Nebraska,  composed  of  the  hardy  hunters  of  that 
territory,  hardly  yet  reclaimed.  A  few  moments  after,  Buckner 
came  out  of  the  entrenchments  with  his  reserves ;  but  his  soldiers, 
fatigued  and  discouraged  by  the  efforts  of  the  preceding  days,  did 


494  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

not  go  into  the  conflict  with  alacrity,  while  their  officers,  knowing 
that  they  were  destined  for  the  rough  work  appertaining  to  the  rear- 
guard of  the  army,  were  desirous,  they  said,  of  sparing  their  men. 
Consequently,  the  attack  was  faintly  made.  After  the  first  unsuc- 
cessful assault,  the  Confederates  fled  in  disorder,  and  sought  shelter 
behind  the  breastworks,  whence  no  exhortations  on  the  part  of 
their  chiefs  could  drag  them.  This  was  the  decisive  moment. 
Buckner  was  repulsed,  and  Pillow,  being  no  longer  sustained, 
found  it  impossible  to  advance  farther  with  men  exhausted  by 
six  hours'  fighting.  He  had  brought  his  last  reserves  into  action, 
and  was  obliged  to  stop.  The  Federals  were  thus  allowed  time 
to  form  again ;  connecting  their  various  positions  in  an  uneven  line, 
they  were  soon  enabled  to  present  a  new  line  of  battle  alongside 
of  the  road,  the  possession  of  which  had  been  the  object  of  all  the 
enemy's  efforts.  The  passage  was  yet  open  for  the  Confederates, 
but  it  became  more  and  more  difficult  for  them  to  avail  them- 
selves of  it  to  push  their  whole  army  through  in  the  presence  of 
an  adversary  who  had  had  a  breathing-spell. 

In  the  mean  time.  Grant  had  repaired  to  the  field  of  battle. 
He  had  seen  his  line  driven  in,  but  he  thought,  nevertheless,  that 
if  he  could  for  an  instant  check  the  impetus  which  the  Confed- 
erates had  acquired  by  their  first  success  he  might  yet  snatch  the 
victory  from  them.  As  to  the  besieged,  who  fought  with  the 
energy  of  despair,  a  half  triumph  was  to  them  an  overwhelming 
defeat,  and  their  first  effi^rt  had  exhausted  their  energies;  so 
that  when,  at  two  o'clock,  after  a  conflict  of  eight  hours,  he  saw 
Pillow's  soldiers  pause  on  the  ground  they  had  conquered,  and 
those  of  Buckner  fall  back  at  the  first  fire  of  L.  Wallace's  divis- 
ion, he  judged  that  the  moment  had  arrived  to  assume  the  offen- 
sive, and  to  derive  a  great  success  from  the  battle  which  had  nearly 
upset  all  his  plans.  In  proportion  as  the  prolonging  of  the  con- 
flict had  shaken  their  confidence  and  dispelled  their  first  illusions, 
trouble  and  uncertainty  had  anew  taken  possession  of  the  Con- 
federate leaders.  While  Buckner  was  vainly  endeavoring  to  lead 
his  men  once  more  into  the  fight,  the  evacuation  of  the  fort,  just 
commenced,  was  suspended ;  and  Pillow,  seeing  the  Federals  form- 
ing again  to  recover  the  ground  lost  in  the  morning,  fell  back  to 
take  position  upon  an  elevated  hill  situated  a  few  hundred  metres 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  495 

in  advance  of  his  entrenchments.  It  was  at  this  moment  that 
Grant  ordered  the  fresh  troops  of  Smith  on  the  left  and  L.  Wal- 
lace's division  in  the  centre  to  make  a  general  attack  upon  the 
enemy's  works,  before  the  latter  could  have  time  to  look  about 
him.  While  McClernand's  regiments  were  forming  again,  those 
of  Wallace  bravely  marched  up  to  the  assault  of  the  height  occu- 
pied by  Pillow,  and  carried  it  after  a  bloody  engagement.  But 
they  were  not  equally  successful  in  capturing  the  entrenchments 
behind  which  they  had  just  driven  the  enemy. 

On  the  left,  Smith,  after  making  several  feints  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  works,  Avhere  Buckner  had  left  part  of  his  division, 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  Lauman's  brigade,  which  he  elec- 
trified by  his  words  and  by  his  example.  The  Confederates 
were  unable  to  resist  that  shock,  and  Smith,  with  the  aid  of  his 
artillery,  which  took  position  in  the  entrenchments  from  which 
they  had  just  been  dislodged,  easily  repelled  all  their  efforts  to 
retake  them. 

Night  at  last  put  an  end  to  that  sanguinary  conflict,  which  cost 
each  army  more  than  two  thoasand  men.  It  found  the  Fed- 
erals masters  of  all  the  positions  they  had  lost  in  the  morning 
on  the  right,  and  firmly  established  on  the  left  among  the  enemy's 
entrenchments.  From  these  they  commanded  the  greatest  por- 
tion of  the  ground  ^vhere  the  Confederate  soldiers  were  encamped 
pell-mell,  as  well  as  the  works  of  Fort  Donelson.  The  dawn  of 
day,  which  they  impatiently  awaited  under  arms,  now  cheerfully 
bearing  cold  and  hunger,  would  enable  them  to  complete  their 
victory  and  gather  its  fruits. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  trouble  and  discouragement  prevailed  in 
the  Confederate  camp.  After  fighting  a  whole  day  to  force  a 
passage  through  the  enemy's  lines  they  found  themselves  again 
shut  up  within  the  same  enclosure  they  had  vainly  attempted  to 
leave ;  and  furthermore,  they  beheld  the  enemy  posted  in  the  very 
centre  of  their  line  of  defence.  From  the  general-in-chief  down 
to  the  last  soldier  all  felt  that  the  game  was  lost  beyond  hope  of 
recovery,  and  no  one  seriously  thought  of  prolonging  the  strug- 
gle. Amid  the  darkness,  which  alone  afforded  protection  to  the 
vanquished  army,  scenes  were  then  witnessed  which  presented  a 
shameful  contrast  to  the  valor  and  energy  of  which  the  Confed- 


496  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

erates  have  given  proof  on  so  many  other  occasions.  The  command- 
er-in-chief, Floyd,  having  summoned  a  council  of  war,  declared 
that  the  army  had  nothing  to  do  but  surrender,  for  the  two  small 
steamers  at  their  disposal  could  not  convey  it  to  the  other  side  of 
the  river  during  the  night,  and  at  daybreak,  not  a  battle,  but  a 
massacre,  might  be  expected.  In  the  mean  time,  as  he  was  aware 
that  the  Yankees  particularly  desired  to  seize  his  person,  he 
announced  his  intention  of  eifecting  his  escape ;  and  to  that  effect 
he  resigned  the  command  of  wliich  he  made  such  miserable  use. 
Pillow,  who  succeeded  him  by  right  of  seniority,  insisted  that 
Grant  could  yet  be  resisted ;  but  when  he  found  himself  invested 
with  authority,  he  changed  his  mind,  and  after  declaring  that  he 
shared  the  personal  views  of  his  superior,  he  followed  the  exam- 
ple of  his  defection.  He  hastened,  in  his  turn,  to  transfer  the 
command  to  Buckner,  who,  alone  actuated  by  a  sense  of  military 
honor,  accepted  the  painful  task  of  capitulating  at  the  head  of 
those  soldiers  whom  their  unworthy  commander  so  basely  for- 
sook. Through  a  whimsical  scruple,  prompted  perhaps  by  the 
favorite  theory  of  the  Confederates  regarding  the  independence 
of  States,  Floyd  requested  and  obtained  permission  from  his  late 
subordinate  to  take  with  him  in  his  flight  the  regiment  of  Vir- 
ginians he  had  brought  with  him  from  his  native  State.  During 
this  painful  comedy  the  rumor  of  an  impending  capitulation 
spread  like  lightning  among  those  soldiers  who  were  already 
crushed  by  the  weight  of  their  defeat.  All  the  bonds  of  disci- 
pline were  broken  at  once ;  and  following  the  example  of  his  lead- 
ers, each  man  thought  only  of  himself.  The  disorder  reached  its 
culminating  point  when  that  bewildered  crowd  witnessed  through 
the  darkness  of  the  night  the  preparations  for  flight  on  the  part 
of  a  few  privileged  individuals.  Men  rushed  to  the  wharves, 
where  the  two  small  steamers  were  receiving  those  persons  who, 
profiting  by  their  defection,  were  to  be  spared  the  sad  fate  of 
being  made  prisoners  of  war.  Floyd,  Pillow,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  staff-officers  had  already  crossed  over  to  the  other  side  of 
the  river  with  about  three  thousand  men,  when  the  two  steamers, 
instead  of  returning  to  take  another  load  of  fugitives,  who  were 
waiting  for  them  as  their  last  chance  of  safety,  steamed  rapidly 
up  the  Cumberland.     Day  was  beginning  to  break ;  and  the  pale 


LONELSON  AND  PEA  EIDGE.  497 

glimmer  of  that  winter  morning  announced  to  Buckner  that  the 
time  had  arrived  for  proposing  a  capitulation  to  Grant.  From 
that  moment  he  could  no  longer  authorize  the  flight  of  a  single 
man.  While  the  Federals  were  preparing  for  the  attack  they  saw 
the  enemy  displaying  the  white  flag  on  eveiy  side.  A  few  hours 
after,  Buckner  accepted,  with  bad  grace  and  without  dignity, 
Grant's  propositions.  He  constituted  himself  a  prisoner  of  war, 
with  the  remnants  of  the  army  which  had  been  beaten  the  day 
before.  The  Confederate  colonel  Forrest,  whose  mission  during 
the  battle  had  been  to  clear  the  road,  had  taken  advantage  of 
the  night  to  draw  off  with  his  cavalry,  across  swamps  impracti- 
cable for  the  army,  by  following  a  narrow  path  running  along  the 
steep  banks  of  the  river.  He  made  his  escape,  leaving  his  rear- 
guard in  the  hands  of  McClernand. 

The  capture  of  Donelson  was  a  great  and  glorious  success  for 
the  Federals.  The  material  results  were  considerable.  The 
capitulation  delivered  into  the  hands  of  Grant  fourteen  thousand 
six  hundred  and  twentj-three  prisoners,  sixty-five  cannons,  sev- 
enteen thousand  muskets — that  is  to  say,  an  entire  army,  with 
all  its  mathnel.  His  entire  losses  amounted  to  two  thousand  and 
forty-one  men,  of  whom  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  were 
killed ;  the  Confederates  had  about  the  same  number  of  men  dis- 
abled. 

The  moral  effect  was  immense.  The  remembrance  of  Bull 
Run  was  blotted  out  by  a  victory  much  more  hotly  contested, 
and  the  results  of  which  were  otherwise  of  importance.  In  short, 
after  the  scenes  which  had  just  been  witnessed  in  Floyd's  tent 
and  on  the  banks  of  the  Cumberland,  the  Confederates  could  no 
longer  taunt  their  enemies  with  the  panic  of  the  21st  of  July :  the 
game  was  henceforth  even  between  them. 

This  defeat  was  a  terrible  blow  for  the  South.  It  caused  great 
surprise  to  the  Richmond  government  as  well  as  to  the  jjublic, 
who  had  too  long  been  lulled  by  dangerous  illusions.  From  the 
impression  produced  by  this  reverse  we  may  already  remark  the 
difference  of  character  in  the  two  peoples  who  were  struggling 
on  the  soil  of  America.  The  South  bore  the  disaster  without 
being  discouraged,  but  no  indication  could  be  perceived  of  that 
patriotic  impulse  which  had  armed  so  many  volunteers  in  the 

Vol.  I.— 32 


498  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

North  to  repair  the  disaster  of  Bull  Run.  The  belligerent  ardor 
of  the  South  had  reached  its  height  at  the  outset  of  the  war,  and 
after  having  then  filled  the  ranks  of  the  Confederate  armies,  it 
was  already  on  the  decline.  The  confidence  felt  during  the  early- 
stages  of  the  rebellion  had  disappeared;  people  fought  because 
they  had  entered  upon  a  path  from  which  they  could  see  no  possi- 
ble issue  but  victory.  Whatever  sacrifices  might  be  deemed  ne- 
cessary to  secure  the  success  of  an  enterprise  so  imprudently  begun 
they  were  ready  to  make  without  a  murmur,  but  also  without  en- 
thusiasm. The  conduct  of  all  the  Confederate  authorities  was  for 
a  time  severely  commented  upon.  But  like  all  absolute  power, 
dreading  discussion  even  when  likely  to  be  favorable  to  its  mea- 
sures, Mr.  Davis's  government,  on  the  one  hand,  relieved  both 
Floyd  and  Pillow  from  their  duties,  and  on  the  other,  it  im- 
posed silence  upon  those  who  presumed  to  criticise  the  manage- 
ment of  military  affairs. 

The  capitulation  of  Fort  Donelson  greatly  embarrassed  all  the 
operations  of  the  Confederate  armies.  During  the  battle  of  the 
15th,  Floyd  had  announced  a  certain  victory  by  telegraph  to 
Sidney  Johnston,  who  was  assembling  his  army  in  front  of  Nash- 
ville to  defend  the  line  of  the  Cumberland.  In  the  evening  the 
general-in-chief  learned  the  full  extent  of  the  disaster.  The  con- 
fusion caused  by  this  news  was  such  that  a  brigade  of  one  thou- 
sand five  hundred  men,  which  had  been  sent  as  a  reinforcement 
to  Donelson,  was  not  countermanded.  Having  quietly  entered 
the  entrenchments  near  Dover,  these  troops  found  themselves,  to 
their  great  surprise,  surrounded  by  Federals  and  obliged  to  lay 
down  their  arms.  In  the  mean  time,  the  Confederate  generals 
felt  that  it  was  necessary  to  look  out,  without  loss  of  time,  for  a 
new  line  and  other  defensive  positions  in  those  parts  of  the  Con- 
federacy which  yet  remained  intact.  Bowling  Green  had  already 
been  abandoned.  Johnston,  while  sending  part  of  his  army  to 
Donelson,  following  close  upon  his  materiel,  had  fallen  back  upon 
the  Cumberland,  thus  delivering  the  whole  of  Kentucky  into  the 
hands  of  the  Federals.  As  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  defeat  of 
Floyd,  he  understood  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to 
maintain  himself  upon  that  river,  which  he  had  once  thought  of 
making  his  line  of  defence.     The  evacuation  of  Nashville  and 


BONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  499 

Columbus  was  instantly  determined  upon.     These  were  the  first 
fruits  of  Grant's  victory. 

It  was  above  all  essential  to  abandon  Nashville,  for  the  mao-- 
nificent  suspension  bridge  across  the  Cumberland  was  the  only 
line  of  retreat  for  Johnston's  army,  and  Foote's  gun-boats  might 
at  any  time  come  to  destroy  it.  There  was  no  longer  any  fortifi- 
cation along  the  course  of  the  river  that  could  stop  them.  The 
city  itself,  situated  on  the  south  bank,  was  everywhere  com- 
manded, and  incapable  of  defence.  This  city,  containing  seven- 
teen thousand  souls,  had  played  a  part  far  above  its  real  import- 
ance in  the  last  revolution.  Inhabited  by  a  rich  aristocracy  of 
slaveholders,  it  had  distinguished  itself  by  its  zeal  in  favor  of  the 
secession  movement,  and  had  even  once  aspired  to  the  honor  of 
becoming  the  capital  of  the  Confederate  States.  The  entire  State 
government  of  Tennessee  had  remained  there  in  spite  of  Grant's 
invasion,  and  both  houses  of  the  legislature  daily  passed  resolu- 
tions of  the  most  violent  character,  and  indulged  in  bitter  invec- 
tives against  the  Yankees.  Carried  away  by  a  deceiving  confi- 
dence, they  always  said  they  would  die  rather  than  withdraw  or 
surrender.  But  when,  at  the  sight  of  Johnston's  regiments,  which 
passed  through  the  city  on  the  morning  of  the  16th  without  stop- 
ping, the  rumor  went  round  that  Nashville  was  about  to  be  aban- 
doned to  the  invaders,  the  excitement  was  greater,  says  the  his- 
torian Pollard,  than  if  an  earthquake  had  levelled  every  building. 
Very  soon  the  departure  of  all  the  State  authorities  with  the 
archives  and  public  funds,  and  in  such  haste  as  their  former 
speeches  had  not  foreshadowed,  confirmed  this  news.  An  un- 
heard-of panic  then  seized  the  inhabitants  of  Nashville.  One 
would  have  said  that  they  were  flying  before  a  deluge  which 
threatened  to  swallow  up  everything.  Nothing  was  thought  of 
but  to  save  what  each  possessed  of  any  value.  Horses  and  car- 
riages of  every  description,  hired  at  fabulous  prices,  set  out 
en  masse  on  the  roads  leading  south,  laden  with  everything  sus- 
ceptible of  transportation.  But  it  was  even  worse  when,  on 
the  18th,  Floyd,  arriving  with  his  brigade  from  Fort  Douelson, 
was  ordered  to  close  up  on  Johnston.  The  burning  of  the  great 
suspension  bridge  and  the  construction  docks  along  the  Cumber- 
land was  the  signal  of  disorder  which  defies  description.     It  hav- 


500  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ing  been  found  impossible  to  remove  the  goods  from  the  military 
depots  of  provisions,  they  were  thrown  open  and  plundered  by 
the  populace.  The  last  Confederate  soldiers  had  disappeared 
amid  the  imprecations  of  those  who  had  not  been  able  to  follow 
them.  Anarchy  reigned  supreme.  At  last  the  mayor  and  a  few 
citizens  succeeded  in  restoring  some  degree  of  order  while  waiting 
for  the  arrival  of  the  Federals. 

The  latter  appeared  on  the  23d.  They  were  a  portion  of  BuelFs 
forces,  consisting  of  a  regiment  of  cavalry,  the  Fourth  Ohio,  of 
Mitchell's  division.  This  division  had  been  sent  by  the  com- 
mander of  the  army  of  Kentucky  to  watch  Johnston's  move- 
ments as  soon  as  he  had  heard  of  Grant's  march  upon  Fort  Don- 
elson.  Having  started  on  \\\q  13th  in  full  haste,  it  reached  Bow- 
ling Green  on  the  14th  just  in  time  to  see  the  last  Confederate 
troops  evacuate  that  place,  set  fire  to  their  storehouses,  and  quickly 
disappear,  destroying  all  the  railroad  bridges  behind  them.  It 
required  no  less  than  nine  days  for  Mitchell's  soldiers,  who  had 
been  delayed  for  want  of  provisions,  to  reach  Nashville.  They 
got  there,  however,  in  advance  of  the  Federal  gun-boats  and  the 
conquerors  of  Donelson. 

On  the  20th  the  indefatigable  Foote  had  taken  possession  of 
Clarksville,  an  important  position  situated  on  the  river,  below 
Nashville,  and  was  preparing  to  take  four  thousand  of  Grant's 
soldiers  on  board  for  the  purpose  of  occupying  the  capital  of  Ten- 
nessee without  delay.  But  this  operation  was  forbidden  by  orders 
from  General  Halleck.  Grant's  army,  worn  out  by  that  trying 
campaign,  and  still  more  by  the  climate  than  by  battle,  counted 
many  on  the  sick-list,  and  needed  rest.  Consequently,  it  was  only 
on  the  27th  that  one  of  his  divisions  was  able  to  reach  Nashville 
by  land.  And  this  movement  came  near  costing  Grant  his  com- 
mand. He  was  accused  of  having  overstepped  the  imaginary  line 
which,  in  the  departments  at  Washington,  divided  all  the  South- 
ern States  among  the  various  Federal  proconsuls.  They  set  up 
against  him  the  brilliant  conduct  of  Smith  at  the  assault  of  Don- 
elson ;  a  feeling  of  old  regimental  fellowship  was  seeking  to  at- 
tribute to  the  latter  all  the  merit  of  the  victory ;  and  Grant  found 
himself  for  a  while  detained  at  the  d6p6t  of  Fort  Henry  by  orders 
from  headquarters,  while  most  of  his  soldiers  continued  to  pen- 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  501 

etrate  into  the  enemy's  country.  But  this  disgrace  was  Lot  of 
long  duration. 

On  leaving  Nashville,  Johnston  had  followed  the  Chattanooga 
Railroad.  He  was  thus  moving  away  from  the  two  rivers,  of 
which  the  Federals  were  already  masters,  and  could  easily  make 
connection  with  the  troops  which  had  evacuated  Eastern  Ken- 
tucky under  Crittenden.  His  army  was  still  numerous,  but  it 
had  lost  all  confidence,  and  Johnston  did  not  think  he  would  be 
able  to  make  it  face  the  enemy.  In  choosing  this  line  of  retreat 
he  obliged  the  Federals  either  to  allow  him  time  enough  to  reor- 
ganize his  army  or  to  come  to  attack  him,  after  a  fatiguing  march, 
in  positions  which  were  very  strong  and  with  only  a  portion  of 
their  troops.  The  retreat  of  the  Confederates  had  been  troublesome, 
for  the  weather  was  frightful  and  the  roads  extremely  broken  up. 
But  the  very  obstacles  they  encovmtered  rendered  pursuit  impos- 
sible for  their  adversaries.  Johnston  stopped  at  Murfreesborough, 
about  fifty-two  kilometres  from  Nashville,  where  he  was  joined 
by  Crittenden,  and  found  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  able  to 
make  head  ag-ainst  the  Federals.*  The  latter  took  e;ood  care  not 
to  go  in  search  of  him. 

In  the  mean  while,  the  Confederates,  in  pursuance  of  Johnston's 
instructions,  had  abandoned  Columbus  a  few  days  after  the  evac- 
uation of  Nashville,  thus  giving  up  the  whole  State  of  Kentucky. 
The  fate  of  the  garrison  of  Fort  Donelson  was  a  warning  to 
Polk's  army  not  to  allow  itself  to  be  shut  up  in  Columbus.  Beau- 
regard, who  had  been  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  the  de- 
fences of  the  INIississippi,  had  selected,  in  order  to  bar  the  river 
against  the  Federals,  a  point  situated  about  seventy  kilometres 
lower  down.  The  great  river,  in  its  thousand  bends,  describes  at 
this  point  two  angles,  turning  first  to  the  west,  then  to  the  north, 
to  sweep  again  to  the  west,  and  finally  to  the  south,  so  that  be- 
tween the  two  it  runs  in  a  direction  opposite  to  its  general  course. 
In  the  centre  of  the  upper  elbow  stands  one  of  those  numerous 
islands,  formed  by  the  alluvial  accretions  of  the  river,  which  nav- 

*  Pollard  only  gives  Johnston  seventeen  thousand  men,  but  Stevenson,  who 
was  present,  ciphers  up  nearly  sixty  thousand  men  ;  it  is  probable  that  the  truth 
lies  between  the  two  figures,  and  that  he  could  muster  nearly  forty  thousand 
effective  men. 


502  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

igators  have  merely  laid  down  in  the  chart  by  number;  it  is 
called  No.  10.  At  the  second  angle,  which,  although  situated 
below,  lies  more  to  the  north  than  the  first,  stands  the  village 
of  New  Madrid,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  evacuation  of  Columbus  began  on  the  25th  of  February, 
and  was  completed  by  the  3d  of  March.  The  next  day  a  party 
of  Federal  cavalry  from  Paducah  penetrated  into  its  abandoned 
entrenchments  with  its  spiked  guns  and  still  burning  magazines. 
A  few  hours  afterwards,  Foote's  fleet,  which  Hal  leek  had  recalled 
from  Donelson,  landed  at  the  foot  of  the  deserted  works  a  re- 
cently formed  division,  the  command  of  which  had  been  given  to 
W.  T.  Sherman.  The  latter  thus  reappeared  on  the  military 
stage,  which  he  was  not  to  leave  again,  and  on  which  the  part  he 
was"  to  play  increased  in  importance  from  day  to  day. 

Polk,  with  a  portion  of  his  troops,  fell  back  as  far  as  Corinth, 
the  centre  of  the  approaching  operations  against  Grant's  army. 
The  remainder,  about  four  or  five  thousand  men,  occupied  Island 
No.  10  and  the  batteries  which  completed  the  system  of  de- 
fence on  the  left  bank  of  the  river.  Commodore  Hollins  had 
brought  a  few  iron-clad  vessels  from  New  Orleans  to  support 
them,  but  the  armor  of  most  of  them  was  quite  inadequate.  The 
Confederate  government  made  every  effort  to  convince  the  public 
that  Island  No.  10  would  definitively  check  the  progress  of  the 
Federals  on  the  Mississippi ;  but  notwithstanding  these  assur- 
ances, the  military  leaders  were  fully  aware  that  this  position  was 
too  advanced  and  too  isolated  to  be  able  to  hold  out  long.  Their 
only  object  in  occupying  it  was  to  cover  the  left  extremity  of 
their  line  during  the  time  required  for  massing  the  forces  des- 
tined to  fight  Grant's  army  in  the  centre  of  that  line.  It  was 
on  that  side,  in  fact,  that  the  two  parties  were  preparing  for  a 
conflict  the  proportions  of  which  were  to  exceed  all  that  this  war 
had  up  to  that  time  displayed. 

Before  describing  this  conflict  we  must  cast  a  glance  along  the 
west  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  where  the  adversaries,  who  had  re- 
mained in  sight  of  each  other,  were  about  to  meet  again  in  battle. 
Upon  that  remote  theatre,  as  we  have  already  stated,  military 
events  could  not  possess  a  decided  importance,  and  the  move- 
ments of  the  armies  which  met  there  were  subordinate  to  the 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  503 

issues  of  battles  fought  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Never- 
theless, as  with  all  secondary  operations,  neither  of  the  two 
parties  could  neglect  them  without  being  exposed  to  serious 
dangers. 

We  left  the  two  enemies  widely  separated  from  each  other  in 
Missouri  at  the  close  of  the  year  1861.  The  greatest  part  of  that 
State  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Federals.  But  in  order  to  subsist 
their  troops  with  greater  facility  during  the  winter,  they  had 
brought  them  back  into  the  neighborhood  of  rivers  and  railways. 
These  railroads  were  but  the  forerunners  of  the  lines  destined  at 
some  future  day  to  connect  New  Mexico,  Colorado,  Texas,  and 
Lower  California  with  the  borders  of  the  Mississippi.  They  stretch 
towards  the  deserts  of  the  far  West  like  the  arms  of  a  giant  striv- 
ing to  grasp  the  immense  spaces  that  still  rebel  against  civiliza- 
tion. The  village  of  Rolla,  thus  named  by  some  transatlantic 
admirer  of  Alfred  de  JNIusset,  was  the  terminus,  as  we  have  said 
before,  of  that  branch  among  those  groups  of  railways  which  run 
to  the  south-west.  The  road  which  Lyon  had  followed  before 
the  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek,  of  great  importance  in  those  primi- 
tive regions,  although  in  a  wretched  condition,  was  in  prolooga- 
tion  of  the  railway.  It  passed  through  Springfield,  descended 
into  Arkansas,  and  after  crossing  the  long  chain  ot  the  Ozark 
INIountains  near  Benton vi41e,  reached  Fort  Smith,  on  the  great 
Arkansas  E-iver.  Beyond  this  last  station  the  habitations  and 
cultivated  lands  which  the  facilities  of  communication  had  de- 
veloped along  the  road  became  more  and  more  rare ;  at  last,  on 
leaving  Fort  Belknap,  in  Texas,  the  mail-carrier  had  no  other 
guide  than  a  small  compass  to  direct  him  in  finding  out  the  stages 
marked  by  the  whitened  bones  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  emigrant  or 
the  Mexican  adventurer.  The  two  adversaries,  one  resting  upon 
St.  Louis,  the  other  on  the  State  of  Arkansas,  had  to  meet  on  this 
road  whenever  the  aim  of  their  campaigns  was  the  possession  of 
Missouri. 

Hostilities  commenced  west  of  the  Mississippi  about  the  same 
time  as  on  the  banks  of  the  Tennessee.  Hunter,  after  supersed- 
ing Fremont,  had  left  the  army  of  the  Missouri  and  taken  com- 
mand of  the  troops  assembled  in  the  State  of  Kansas.  His  mis- 
sion was  simply  to  hunt  the  guerillas,  to  protect  the  Unionists, 


504  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and  to  secure  them  some  measure  of  safety.  He  succeeded  to  a 
considerable  extent,  and  restored  some  degree  of  order  in  that 
State,  which,  since  its  birth,  had  never  been  aught  but  a  battle- 
field. 

In  that  part  of  Missouri  situated  north  of  the  river  of  that 
name  the  Confederates  still  counted  a  large  number  of  partisans; 
but  they  had  given  up  the  idea  of  disputing  its  possession  with 
the  Federals,  who,  under  Pope,  occupied  all  the  principal  points 
in  the  country,  and  especially  the  lines  of  railroad.  They  con- 
fined themselves  to  the  task  of  recruiting  volunteers,  who  after- 
wards crossed  the  river  to  join  Price's  army,  while,  on  the  con- 
trary, all  the  efforts  of  the  Federals  were  intended  to  disperse  or 
to  intercept  those  recruits.  In  this  war  of  detail  we  have  only  a 
single  serious  engagement  to  record,  that  of  Silver  Creek,  where, 
on  the  8th  of  January,  a  party  of  Federal  cavalry  routed  a  small 
body  of  Confederate  partisans,  who  had  just  met  there  and  were 
in  the  act  of  organizing. 

In  the  mean  while,  Curtis,  who  had  retired  with  the  army  of 
the  Missouri  as  far  as  Roll  a,  was  preparing  to  go  in  search  of 
Price  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State.  The  Confederate  general, 
whose  troops  were  daily  increasing  in  number,  occupied  a  threat- 
ening position  at  Springfield,  from  which  it  was  important  to  dis- 
lodge him.  Curtis  had  collected  twelVe  thousand  men,  forming 
four  small  corps,  improperly  called  divisions,  for  they  possessed 
only  the  numerical  strength  of  weak  brigades.  On  the  11th  of 
February  he  started  for  Springfield,  following  the  post-road. 
Frightful  weather  rendered  that  march  extremely  painful,  and 
seemed  to  promise  Price  an  easy  success.  His  ten  thousand 
men  were  well  entrenched,  and  encamped  in  good  quarters.  But 
the  Confederate  general  felt  isolated ;  and  since  the  forces  assem- 
bled in  Arkansas  had  refused  to  join  him  the  preceding  year, 
he  had  become  less  daring.  Without  waiting  for  his  adversary, 
he  fell  back  towards  the  south  with  his  Missouri  militia,  and  only 
used  his  cavalry  on  the  12th  of  February  in  covering  his  retreat. 
The  Federals  crossed  the  Arkansas  frontier  in  his  tracks,  still  fol- 
lowing, like  him,  the  post-road.  On  the  17th  of  February  they 
had  a  slight  engagement  with  the  rear-guard  of  the  enemy  near 
Sugar  Creek ;  and  soon  after,  they  reached  the  Ozark  Mountains. 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  505 

The  nature  of  the  country  imparted  an  altogether  peculiar 
character  to  that  war.  The  post-road  afforded  Curtis  great 
facilities  for  moving  his  supply-trains  and  his  artillery,  and  for 
receiving  reinforcements,  ammunition,  and  all  the  materials  of 
war  which  were  to  be  forwarded  to  him  from  the  arsenals  of  the 
North,  but  it  did  not  give  him  the  means  of  drawing  provisions 
from  his  distant  depots,  as  a  line  of  railway  or  a  navigable 
river  would  have  done;  thousands  of  wagons  w'ould  not  have 
sufficed  to  perform  that  service  between  Rolla  and  Bentonville. 
In  those  regions  of  the  far  West,  therefore,  armies  were  always 
obliged  to  subsist  upon  the  country  through  which  they  passed ; 
and  that  country  being  scarcely  under  cultivation,  on  the  one  hand, 
those  armies  had  to  be  limited  as  to  number,  and  on  the  other  hand 
it  w^as  necessary  to  scatter  them  over  a  vast  extent  of  territory,  in 
order  to  collect  the  meagre  resources  of  the  country  in  sufficient 
quantities.  Hence  in  the  early  part  of  March  we  find  Curtis's 
troops  divided  into  small  detachments  encamped  at  great  distances 
from  each  other  along  the  Ozark  Mountains.  After  advancing  as 
far  as  Fayetteville,  the  Federal  general,  fearing  that  he  had  ven- 
tured too  far  into  the  enemy's  country,  fell  back  upon  the  valley  of 
Sugar  Creek,  whence  he  could  if  necessary  easily  regain  the  State 
of  Missouri.  This  water-course,  in  the  vicinity  of  which  the 
last  engagement  had  taken  place,  afforded  him  positions  easy  to 
defend,  the  natural  strength  of  which  he  further  increased  by 
means  of  entrenchments,  in  which  he  expected  to  rally  his  scat- 
tered troops  in  the  event  of  the  enemy's  coming  to  attack  him 
from  the  south.  Part  of  the  infantry  took  possession  of  the 
mills  bordering  on  Sugar  Creek,  and  set  to  work  to  make  flour, 
while  the  cavalry  and  draft  animals  went  in  search  of  forage, 
wandering  about  from  one  pasture-ground  to  another.  A  few 
parties  proceeded  as  far  as  the  valley  of  the  Arkansas.  The  Fed- 
eral general  took  up  his  quarters  along  the  post-road,  a  little  to 
the  south  of  Sugar  Creek,  at  a  place  called  Cross  Hollows.  Carr's 
division  was  encamped  near  him.  Sigel,  with  the  nucleus  cf 
two  small  divisions,  neither  of  which  was  larger  than  a  French 
regiment,  was  at  Bentonville,  about  fifteen  kilometres  from  Sugar 
Creek.  But  the  positions  selected  by  Curtis,  for  the  purpose  of 
checking  any  enemy  coming  from  the  south,  were  in  rear  of  that 


506  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

stream,  which  runs  from  east  to  west  before  pursuing  a  northerly- 
direction.  A  ravine  watered  by  this  stream  separates  two  of  the 
hills  forming  the  chain  of  Ozark  Mountains,  which  both  alike 
slope  down  in  gentle  declivities  towards  the  north  and  very  ab- 
ruptly to  the  south.  The  one  commanding  the  ravine  at  the  north 
is  known  by  the  name  of  Pea  Ridge.  It  is  separated  from  another 
steep  acclivity,  which  rises  still  more  to  the  north,  by  another 
wooded  ravine,  called  Cross-Timber  Hollows,  running  from  east  to 
west,  the  waters  of  which,  having  reached  the  plain,  finally  mingle 
with  those  of  Sugar  Creek.  These  breaks  in  the  ground  were  gen- 
erally covered  with  small  copsewood,  intersected  here  and  there  by 
cultivated  clearings  and  tall  trees  shooting  up  from  the  watery  bot- 
toms. Communicating  by  cross-roads  with  Bentonville,  which  it 
leaves  on  its  right,  the  post-road  descends  into  the  ravine  of  Sugar 
Creek  at  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  crest  of  Pea  Ridge.  Before 
reaching  that  point,  midway  of  the  gentle  declivities  which  slope 
down  towards  the  north  and  which  the  road  easily  ascends,  it 
encounters  a  small  solitary  building  called  Elkhorn  Tavern. 
Here  branches  off  a  road  which  leads  to  Bentonville  through  the 
hamlet  of  Leetown,  situated  in  the  centre  of  the  ridge.  Such  is 
the  ground  upon  which  the  first  battle  that  drenched  Arkansas 
with  blood  was  about  to  be  fought. 

The  Southern  generals,  having  received  reinforcements,  pre- 
pared to  resume  the  offensive.  Price,  who  had  retired  south-west 
into  the  Indian  territory  among  the  Boston  Mountains,  had  again 
been  joined  by  Generals  McCulloch  and  Mcintosh,  at  the  head 
of  two  divisions  of  Confederate  troops,  and  by  a  considerable 
body  of  Indians  under  the  leadership  of  a  Northern  man,  named 
Albert  Pike,  who,  by  reason  of  his  tall  stature,  his  dauntless 
spirit,  and  his  mother-wit,  had  become  a  man  of  great  influence 
in  the  Far  West.  The  redskins,  who  formed  his  following,  had 
adopted  the  externals  of  our  civilization,  from  which  they  had 
also  contracted  a  taste  for  the  use  of  firearms.  They  had  not 
forgotten  the  traditions  of  their  race,  and  they  eagerly  seized 
the  unlooked-for  opportunity  offered  them  to  assist  the  whites, 
their  old  enemies,  in  destroying  each  other.  Van  Dorn,  that  cap- 
tain of  cavalry  whom  we  saw  in  Texas  at  the  outset  of  the  rebel- 


BONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  507 

lion  in  vain  exciting  his  own  soldiers  to  desert  their  colors  and 
making  them  prisoners  afterwards — ^Van  Dorn,  who  had  become 
one  of  the  important  personages  of  the  new  Confederacy,  had 
assumed  the  chief  command  of  that  army.  He  had  more  than 
sixteen  thousand  men  under  him,  which  gave  him  a  great  numer- 
ical superiority  over  his  opponent.  Consequently,  he  went  forth 
to  meet  the  small  Federal  army  in  the  hope  of  destroying  it 
altogether,  and  of  not  allowing  a  single  one  of  those  abolition 
soldiers  to  re-enter  Missouri  who  had  ventured  so  far  from  all 
possible  succor. 

On  the  5th  of  March  Curtis  had  been  warned  of  his  approach 
by  parties  of  his  own  cavalry  scattered  far  into  the  country,  and 
he  ordered  all  his  troops  to  concentrate  upon  Sugar  Creek.  That 
position  was  well  selected,  for  the  steep  acclivity  of  the  ridge, 
covered  as  it  was  by  the  strong  current  of  the  stream,  presented  a 
formidable  front  to  an  enemy  coming  from  the  south.  But  the 
latter  was  aware  of  this,  and  resolved  to  strike  elsewhere.  He 
had  brought  with  him  provisions  to  last  for  several  days,  and  was, 
therefore,  free  in  his  movements  in  a  country  where  the  popula- 
tion was  generally  friendly  to  him,  and  where  he  could  move  his 
supply-trains  in  every  direction  without  escort.  Curtis,  on  the 
contrary,  was,  by  the  very  circumstances  of  his  position,  tied  to 
the  post-road,  which  he  had  followed  from  Rolla.  He  had  un- 
doubtedly given  up  the  idea  of  keeping  it  always  open,  being 
well  aware  that  the  advantage  of  that  route  as  a  line  of  retreat 
depended  entirely  upon  the  strength  of  his  army ;  he  could  not, 
however,  abandon  it  for  any  length  of  time  without  the  risk  of 
becoming  short  of  ammunition  and  provisions,  and  without  seeing 
his  army  gradually  weakened  for  want  of  the  necessary  means  to 
keep  up  his  personnel  and  materiel.  Consequently,  he  had  been 
obliged  to  establish  small  posts  en  echelon  along  the  most  import- 
ant points  of  his  line. 

It  was  by  this  line  that  Van  Dorn  desired  to  attack  and  take 
the  Federal  positions  in  rear,  thus  reversing  the  order  of  the  two 
armies  and  placing  them  in  the  position  of  tAVO  combatants  in  the 
lists  who  had  changed  places.  He  calculated  that  his  numerical 
superiority  would  enable  him  to  remain  longer  in  that  difficult 
position  than  his  adversary.     Consequently,  after  leaving  Boston 


508  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Mountains  on  the  4th ;  and  having  occupied  on  the  6th  the  village 
of  Cross  Hollows,  which  the  Federals  had  just  evacuated  in  great 
haste,  he  suddenly  changed  his  route,  and  marched  to  the  north- 
west, upon  Bentonville,  on  the  same  day.  One  of  his  columns 
met  there  the  rear-guard  of  the  small  corps  of  Sigel,  which,  hav- 
ing been  called  back  by  Curtis,  was  retiring  towards  Pea  Ridge. 
A  brisk  engagement  immediately  took  place.  The  Confederates 
eagerly  attacked  the  Federal  general,  who  had  only  six  hundred 
men  with  him.  Surrounded  nearly  on  every  side,  the  latter,  with 
the  aid  of  a  few  field-pieces,  nevertheless  repulsed  all  the  assaults 
of  the  enemy,  and  succeeded  in  joining  the  rest  of  his  troops. 
Then,  drawing  up  his  battalions  en  echelon,  he  fell  back  in  good 
order,  crossed  Sugar  Creek,  and,  reaching  Pea  Ridge  in  the  even- 
ing, took  position  west  of  the  rest  of  the  army. 

Instead  of  following  him.  Van  Dorn  continued  his  flank  move- 
ment, crossed  Sugar  Creek  below  the  Federal  camps,  and  biv- 
ouacked before  night  on  the  right  bank  of  that  stream,  at  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  long  slopes  which  terminate  on  that  side  the  plateau 
of  Pea  Ridffe.  The  Federals  were  thus  taken  in  rear,  and  Van 
Dorn  had  already  obtained  an  important  advantage  before  the 
battle  had  commenced. 

But  Curtis  had  got  wind  of  this  manoeuvre.  During  the  night 
he  changed  all  his  plans,  and  prepared  to  receive  the  attack  of  the 
enemy  on  the  side  of  the  positions  to  which  Sigel  had  retired  the 
day  before.  The  early  part  of  the  day,  however,  passed  without 
any  sign  of  battle ;  the  Confederates  were  completing  their  man- 
oeuvre, as  they  wished  to  be  in  possession  of  the  post-road  before 
making  the  attack.  They  reached  it  at  last,  near  the  place  where 
it  crosses  the  ravine  of  Cross-Timber  Hollows,  and  the  firing  of 
musketry  from  the  posts  which  alone  covered  the  rear  of  the  Fed- 
eral positions  on  that  side  soon  made  Curtis  aware  that  the  enemy 
was  carrying  out  his  plan  of  attack.  He  immediately  made  his 
small  army  face  to  the  rear  in  line  of  battle.  Sigel,  who  had  be- 
gun this  movement  in  the  morning,  and  had  already  sent  a  few 
regiments,  with  Colonel  Osterhaus,  to  occupy  a  position  on  the 
side  of  Leetown,  in  order  to  forestall  the  enemy  by  a  counter- 
attack, thus  found  himself  forming  the  left  of  the  Federal  line. 
Asboth's  division,  which  had  been  placed  under  his  command. 


BONELSON  AND  PEA   RIDGE.  609 

formed  the  extremity  of  his  line,  and  rested  upon  the  crest  of  the 
Pea  Ridge  plateau,  above  Sugar  Creek.  Osterhaus's  troops 
stretched  out  a  little  beyond  the  Bentonville  road,  towards  the 
Elkhorn  Tavern,  and  faced  north-west.  The  right  of  the  Fed- 
eral army  was  composed  of  Carr's  division,  which,  at  the  first  in- 
dication of  the  enemy's  presence  on  the  post-road,  hastened  to 
contest  with  him  the  important  position  of  Elkhorn.  A  little 
beyond,  and  at  a  certain  distance  from  his  front,  wound  the  ravine 
of  Cross-Timber  Hollows,  which,  by  an  abrupt  turning,  covered 
his  right  flank.  The  attack  of  the  enemy  forced  Carr  to  face 
northward,  and  thus  gave  to  the  Federal  army  the  form  of  a  broken 
line.     In  the  centre  the  action  had  not  yet  commenced. 

Indeed,  the  attack  of  the  Confederates  was  divided  into  two  dis- 
tinct engagements.  The  divisions  of  Mcintosh  and  McCulloch 
had  been  left  by  Van  Dorn  near  the  place  where  they  had  biv- 
ouacked during  the  night,  with  orders  to  march  upon  Leetown 
as  soon  as  his  left  wing  had  become  engaged.  They  formed  the 
Confederate  right,  and  those  were  the  troops  that  Osterhaus  en- 
countered before  Leetown. 

In  the  mean  time.  Price  and  his  seven  or  eight  thousand  Mis- 
sourians,  under  the  personal  lead  of  Van  Dorn,  had  made  the 
great  flank  movement  which  brought  them,  by  way  of  the  post- 
road,  in  sight  of  Elkhorn  Tavern,  at  the  moment  when  Carr  was 
preparing  to  dispute  that  position  with  them.  They  constituted 
the  left  wing.  But  their  flank  manoeuvre  had  completely  sepa- 
rated them  from  McCulloch  and  Mcintosh.  The  Confederate 
army  was  thus  divided  into  two  parts,  with  inadequate  connec- 
tions between  them,  and  utterly  unable  to  afibrd  each  other  mutual 
support,  while  the  two  Federal  wings  could  hold  easy  communi- 
cations by  means  of  interior  lines. 

In  proportion,  however,  as  the  battle  progressed,  the  chances 
seemed  to  turn  in  favor  of  the  Confederates.  Encouraged  by  the 
success  of  their  first  manoeuvre,  they  attacked  their  adversaries 
with  great  impetuosity.  The  thickness  of  the  woods  favoring 
their  approach,  they  made  great  havoc  in  the  Federal  ranks :  they 
put  buckshot  into  their  guns  on  top  of  the  balls. 

On  the  left,  the  small  division  of  Asboth,  which  had  been  or- 
dei'ed  by  Sigel  to  guard  the  extreme  flank  of  the  line,  was  not  in 


510  TSE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

action ;  but  that  of  Osterhaus,  which  had  gone  forward  to  meet 
Mcintosh  and  McCulloch,  found  it  difficult  to  resist  them.  An 
unfortunate  cavalry  charge  against  an  enemy  concealed  in  the 
woods  had  cost  him  the  loss  of  several  guns  at  the  outset  of  the 
battle. 

On  the  right,  Carr  was  being  more  and  more  closely  pressed 
and  Price  was  gaining  ground.  His  adversaries  left  many 
wounded  and  a  few  cannon  in  his  hands.  On  both  sides  of  the 
post-road,  beyond  the  Elkhorn  Tavern,  of  which  the  Confederates 
had  taken  possession,  the  fight  was  carried  on  furiously.  The 
latter  had  the  advantage  on  the  two  flanks.  The  Federals  saw 
the  enemy  upon  their  line  of  retreat — a  bad  state  of  things  for 
young  soldiers  to  fight  under.  This  was  the  opportunity  of  which 
Mcintosh  and  McCulloch  availed  themselves  to  make  an  import- 
ant move.  They  outflanked  Osterhaus's  right,  which  had  been 
shaken  by  the  unequal  struggle,  and  pushed  forward  to  the  assist- 
ance of  Price,  who  was  already  almost  victorious ;  but  here  they 
were  met  by  a  new  adversary.  Curtis  had  brought  his  last  divis- 
ion, commanded  by  Colonel  Jeiferson  Davis,*  upon  the  field  of 
battle,  and  placed  it  in  the  centre  of  his  line,  between  Leetown 
and  Elkhorn,  within  the  space  separating  the  right  of  Sigel's  di- 
visions from  Carr's  left.  Davis  received  the  attack  of  Mcintosh 
and  McCulloch  on  his  left  with  a  portion  of  his  troops,  while 
the  remainder,  placed  en  potence  upon  the  right,  took  them  in 
flank.  This  violent  shock  staggered  a  few  of  the  Federal  regi- 
ments, but  the  others  resisted.  An  almost  hand-to-hand  fight  now 
took  place  in  a  thick  and  low  coppice-wood.  While  the  action 
was  at  its  height  the  two  Confederate  leaders  fell  mortally 
wounded,  both,  as  it  were,  at  the  same  instant.  Their  soldiers, 
over  whom  they  had  an  immense  control,  became  discouraged  at 
this  sight,  and  were  finally  repulsed. 

It  was  time  for  the  Federals  to  obtain  this  partial  success,  for 
along  the  post-road  their  right  was  still  retiring  before  the  vigor- 
ous attacks  of  Price.  Carr,  aided  only  by  a  few  regiments  de- 
tached from  Davis's  division,  was  no  longer  able  to  maintain  such 
an  unequal  fight,  when  Sigel  sent  Asboth  to  his  assistance,  with  a 
portion  of  his  troops  which  had  been  freed  by  the  check  of  the 
*  Jefferson  C.  Davis,  now  colonel  of  the  Twenty-third  Regular  Infantry. — Ed. 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  511 

Confederate  right.  This  timely  reinforcement  put  a  stop  to  Price's 
progress.  Van  Dorn  tried  in  vain  to  make  a  last  effort  to  reunite 
his  two  wings ;  but  the  lieutenants  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  his 
right  were  no  longer  there  to  execute  his  orders,  and  their  sol- 
diers, discouraged  and  depressed,  no  longer  possessed  the  re- 
quired energy  to  seize  the  victory  which  was  slipping  away  from 
them. 

Night,  moreover,  soon  came  to  put  an  end  to  the  struggle — a 
uight  full  of  uneasiness  and  anxiety  to  both  armies.  The  Fed- 
erals saw  an  enemy  superior  in  numbers  firmly  established  along 
their  only  line  of  retreat.  After  having  fought  him  a  whole  day, 
they  had  not  been  able  to  prevent  his  taking  part  of  the  field  of 
battle  from  them,  and  a  certain  number  of  cannon.  How  were 
they  to  hope  that  the  morrow  would  secure  to  their  diminished 
forces  a  victory  which  was  so  far  from  their  reach,  and  that  they 
would  then  recover  Avhat  they  had  not  been  able  to  preserve  the 
day  before  ?  Yet  this  victory  must  be  achieved  at  any  price ;  for 
if  the  Federals  were  not  conquerors,  they  would  be  prisoners.  Ac- 
cordingly, they  availed  themselves  of  the  darkness  of  the  night  to 
prepare  their  forces  for  the  decisive  battle  of  the  next  day.  Being 
at  ease  so  far  as  his  left  and  left  centre  were  concerned,  where 
Davis's  and  Sigel's  divisions  had  hardly  any  enemy  left  in  front 
of  them,  Curtis  brought  those  troops  back  to  the  right,  upon  the 
ground  where  Carr  had  struggled  all  day  and  lost  one-third  of  his 
effective  force.  It  was  there  that  he  concentrated  all  his  available 
forces,  for  it  was  there  that  he  was  chiefly  menaced ;  it  was  the 
post-road  which  it  was  essential  above  all  to  wrest  from  the  enemy. 
While  Price,  who  occupied  it,  should  be  attacked  on  the  right 
by  Asboth,  in  front  by  Carr,  and  on  the  left  by  Davis,  Oster- 
haus,  deploying  still  farther  to  the  left,  would  prevent  Van 
Dorn  from  renewing  the  attack  on  the  side  of  Leetown.  If,  as  it 
was  supposed,  the  latter  should  find  no  enemy  before  him,  he  was 
to  wheel  to  the  right,  take  the  Confederates  along  the  post-road  in 
flank,  and  drive  them  into  the  deep  gorges  of  Cross-Timber  Hol- 
lows. The  success  of  this  manoeuvre  was  uncertain,  but  the 
attempt  must  be  made,  for  the  fate  of  the  army  depended  upon  it. 

The  Federals  would  have  felt  less  anxiety  if  they  had  judged 
the  situation  of  their  adversaries,  not  by  the  results  obtained,  but 


612  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

by  the  sacrifices  they  had  cost  them.  The  Confederate  soldiers, 
accustomed  to  a  rough  and  adventurous  life,  had  exhibited  great 
courage  and  dash,  but  they  did  not  possess  those  military  qualities 
■which  discipline  imparts.  The  battle  had  thrown  a  certain  amount 
of  disorder  into  their  ranks;  McCulloch  and  Mcintosh  were 
killed,  and  Price  seriously  wounded ;  they  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  following  those  leaders,  and  did  not  care  to  obey  commanders 
whose  voices  were  new  to  them.  Finally,  the  corps  of  Indians, 
from  whom  such  prodigies  of  valor  were  expected,  had  been 
rather  an  encumbrance  than  a  support  to  the  Confederates.  Those 
savages  possessed  the  bravery  which  a  contempt  for  death  inspires, 
but  not  the  courage  engendered  by  the  sense  of  duty.  Excellent 
marksmen,  but  of  a  temperament  too  easily  excited,  they  com- 
pletely lost  their  presence  of  mind  amid  the  tumult  of  a  pitched 
battle  and  the  roar  of  cannon.  The  fatigue  and  the  reduction  of 
rations,  which,  according  to  the  practice  of  young  troops,  had 
been  wasted  during  the  first  day's  march,  were  additional  causes 
calculated  to  damp  the  ardor  of  the  Confederates.  Nevertheless, 
they  prepared  themselves  for  the  conflict.  Feeling,  like  their 
adversaries,  that  the  position  of  Elkhorn  Tavern,  which  they  had 
conquered  the  day  before,  was  the  key  of  the  battle-ground,  they 
had  also  gathered  all  their  forces ;  the  remnants  of  Mcintosh's 
and  McCuUoch's  corps  had  been  rallied  and  massed  there  by  Van 
Dorn.  At  the  same  time,  Sigel,  on  the  side  of  the  Federals,  made 
an  analogous  movement.  The  struggle  was,  therefore,  concen- 
trated within  a  narrow  arena. 

The  day  broke  and  the  Confederates  remained  inactive,  thus 
allowing  their  enemy  time  to  prepare  himself.  The  latter  took 
at  last  the  offensive,  and  opened  fire  against  Elkhorn  and  the 
positions  situated  on  both  sides  of  the  post-road.  Van  Dorn 
defended  himself  with  great  obstinacy,  and  repulsed  the  Federals 
several  times.  But  Sigel  soon  deployed  on  the  left  of  Davis's 
division,  and  thus  took  the  Confederates  in  flank,  while  Asboth 
threatened  them  on  the  right.  It  was  their  turn  to  be  surrounded. 
After  continuing  to  defend  themselves  for  some  time,  they  re- 
crossed  the  ravine  of  Cross-Timber  Hollow  and  abandoned  that 
long-contested  battle-field,  upon  which  they  left  more  than  one 
thousand  men  in  killed  and  wounded. 


DONELSON  AND  PEA  RIDGE.  513 

The  losses  of  the  Federal  army  were  nearly  equal,  amounting 
to  two  hundred  and  three  killed,  nine  hundred  and  seventy-two 
wounded,  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  prisoners.  These 
numbers  included  no  less  than  sixty-nine  officers  disabled ;  but 
it  had  achieved  a  victory.  The  enemy,  who,  a  few  hours  before, 
appeared  ready  to  capture  that  entire  army,  was  in  full  retreat  and 
fast  disappearing  among  those  vast  spaces  whence  he  had  suddenly 
emerged  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  it.  It  was  not  destined  to 
meet  him  again  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Indeed,  so  far  from 
intending  to  go  in  pursuit  of  that  enemy,  it  was  also  about  to  fall 
back.  The  battle  of  Pea  Ridge  had  greatly  weakened  the  small 
army  of  Curtis ;  and  having  no  expectation  of  receiving  the  neces- 
sary reinforcements  to  maintain  himself  so  far  within  an  enemy's 
country,  that  general  withdrew  into  the  southern  counties  of  Mis- 
souri ;  he  established  himself  there  without  having  to  fight  any 
more  battles  but  a  trifling  engagement  at  Salem,  on  the  Arkansas 
frontier,  where,  on  the  18th  of  March,  his  cavalry  obtained  some 
advantage  over  a  party  of  Confederates.  This  new  campaign, 
although  more  bloody,  terminated  like  those  which  had  preceded 
it,  and  could  exercise  no  decisive  influence  over  the  ensemble  of 
military  operations  collectively.  It  may  be  said  that  there  is  just 
as  much  difference  between  the  modes  of  waging  war  in  countries 
already  civilized,  and  those  campaigns  of  which  the  far  West 
was  the  theatre,  as  there  is  between  a  duel  with  swords  and  with 
pistols.  In  the  first  the  two  adversaries  follow  each  other,  watch 
each  other,  close  upon  one  another  by  crossing  sword  with  sword, 
and  the  conqueror  is  the  one  who  knows  how  to  profit  by  the 
errors  of  his  antagonist.  On  the  contrary,  when  they  have  pis- 
tols in  their  hands,  the  combatants,  being  placed  at  a  certain  dis- 
tance from  each  other,  fire  successively  balls  which  either  hit  or 
miss,  while  the  skill  of  the  individual  who  serves  as  target  has 
nothing  to  do  in  the  matter ;  thus  in  that  war  across  the  prairies 
it  frequently  happened  that  two  hostile  armies  would  lose  sight 
of  each  other,  each  marching  on  its  own  side,  and  only  meeting 
again  suddenly  on  the  day  of  battle,  to  part  as  quickly  after  a 
passage-at-arms,  and  each  resuming  its  march  without  taking 
thought  of  the  other. 

Van  Dorn,  however,  had  profited  by  this  kind  of  warfare  to 

Vol.  I.— 33 


514  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

find  the  weak  side  of  his  adversary.  His  flank  movement  was 
well  conceived.  But  having  fallen  into  the  error  which  lost  the 
battle  of  Wilson's  Creek  to  the  Federals,  he  divided  his  army 
too  much ;  and  in  order  to  completely  surround  the  enemy,  he  so 
extended  his  left,  that  on  the  first  check  experienced  by  his  right 
he  was  unable  to  support  it  effectually.  This  error,  together  with 
the  want  of  discipline  of  his  soldiers,  was  the  principal  cause  of 
his  failure. 

The  most  important  result  of  his  defeat  was  to  relieve  the  Fed- 
erals of  all  anxiety  regarding  the  possession  of  Missouri.  They 
were  thus  able  to  concentrate  in  Tennessee  all  their  available 
forces,  the  labors  of  which  we  are  about  to  narrate. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SHILOH. 

BEFORE  resuming  the  narrative  of  the  campaign  undertaken 
by  Grant,  and  of  which  the  victory  of  Donelson  had  formed 
such  a  brilliant  beginning,  we  must  transport  ourselves  for  a  brief 
period  to  one  of  the  most  remote  sections  of  the  Union,  which, 
after  having  long  escaped  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  became  at  the 
commencement  of  1862  the  theatre  of  bloody  conflicts. 

In  an  early  chapter  of  this  work  we  gave  a  description  of 
New  Mexico,  which  occupies  the  elevated  table-lands  comprised 
between  two  spurs  of  the  great  chain  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
Protected  as  much  by  vast  deserts  as  by  the  dangerous  passes  of 
those  mountains,  this  territory  presents  formidable  obstacles  to  the 
smallest  bodies  of  troops  that  might  venture  there.  We  have  re- 
lated the  sufferings  of  the  small  army  of  Sterling  Price,  which 
conquered  that  territory  in  1846.  The  Rio  Grande  del  Norte,  fed 
by  the  snows  from  the  mountains  where  it  takes  its  rise,  waters  the 
only  fertile  valley  to  be  found  in  those  regions,  where  it  seldom 
rains.  After  passing  not  far  from  the  city  of  Santa  Fe,  it  leaves 
New  Mexico  at  the  gorges  of  El  Paso,  and  from  this  point  to  its 
mouth,  at  Matamoras,  it  separates  Mexico  from  Texas.  The  Fed- 
eral government  had  established  a  line  of  fortified  posts  along  this 
river  for  the  purpose  of  defending  its  lower  course  against  the 
Mexicans,  and  the  upper  portion  against  the  incursions  of  Indians. 
The  detachments  of  the  regular  army  which  occupied  New 
Mexico  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion  were  scattered  among 
these  forts,  and  had  their  d6p6ts  and  victualling  stations  at  Santa 
F^.  The  most  important  of  these  posts  were  Fort  Fillmore,  near 
El  Paso,  then  Fort  Craig  and  the  town  of  Albuquerque,  higher  up, 
and  to  the  east,  in  the  mountains.  Forts  Union  and  Staunton.  Since 
■  the  capitulation  of  Major  Lynde's  troops,  near  Fort  Fillmore,  in 

515 


516  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

July,  1861,  the  Confederates  had  been  masters  of  the  course  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  in  the  southern  portion  of  New  Mexico,  from 
El  Paso  to  above  Fort  Thorn,  also  situated  on  that  river.  But 
they  had  refrained  from  disturbing  the  Federals  in  their  possession 
of  the  rest  of  that  territory,  and  had  contented  themselves  with 
drawing  them  into  two  unimportant  engagements  in  the  vicinity 
of  Fort  Craig.  Being  sustained  by  their  governor,  the  popula- 
tion of  New  Mexico,  among  whom  were  many  emigrants  from  the 
North,  had  remained  loyal  to  the  Union,  and  some  volunteers, 
raised  in  the  neighboring  territory  of  Colorado,  had  come  to  re- 
inforce the  small  garrisons  which  protected  that  vast  region.  At 
the  end  of  1861  the  government  had  sent  to  Santa  Fe  General 
Canby,  an  officer  of  great  energy,  who  set  immediately  to  work  to 
multiply  the  means  of  defence.  He  had,  in  fact,  to  sustain  with 
inadequate  force  the  attack  which  the  Confederates  had  long 
meditated  against  New  Mexico.  The  Confederates  were  com- 
manded by  General  Sibley,  lately  an  officer  in  the  regular  army, 
who  must  not  be  confounded  with  his  namesake,  made  prisoner 
by  Van  Dorn  the  year  previous,  who  had  remained  loyal  to  the 
Union. 

The  Confederate  general  assembled  on  the  frontier  at  Fort 
Bliss  all  lovers  of  war  and  plunder  who,  under  the  name  of 
settlers,  occupied  Texas.  When,  in  the  early  part  of  February, 
he  had  thus  collected  a  small  army  of  tM^o  thousand  three  hundred 
men — a  considerable  force  for  those  regions — he  took  up  his  line  of 
march,  passed  Fort  Thorn,  and  proceeded  in  the  direction  of  Fort 
Craig,  where  Canby,  apprised  of  his  movements,  had  repaired 
with  all  the  troops  at  his  disposal,  about  four  thousand  men,  to 
await  his  coming.  This  position,  well  fortified,  and  defended  by 
a  few  £iuns  of  heavy  calibre,  was  the  key  of  the  valley  of  the  Rio 
Grande  and  of  the  Santa  F6  road.  But  Canby's  troops,  although 
numerically  superior,  were  far  inferior  in  quality,  to  the  Texans, 
who  had  long  been  inured  to  the  hardships  of  war  by  their  inces- 
sant struggles  with  the  Indians  and  the  Mexicans.  The  two  bat- 
teries which  constituted  his  whole  artillery  were  in  excellent  con- 
dition ;  a  regiment  of  volunteers,  commanded  by  Kit  Carson,  that 
bold  trapper  who  had  already  played  an  important  part  in  the 
conquest  of  Now  Mexico,  was  composed  of  good  material ;  but 


SHILOH.  517 

liis  three  battalions  of  regulars  were  filled  witii  recruits,  and  the 
rest  of  his  troops  consisted  only  of  inexperienced  soldiers  hastily- 
levied. 

Ascending  the  right  or  western  bank,  upon  which  Fort  Craig 
stands,  Sibley  made  his  appearance  in  front  of  the  Federal  posi- 
tions on  the  16th  of  February.  He  saw  at  once  that  he  could  not 
reduce  that  work,  in  which  Can  by  was  quietly  awaiting  him,  with 
his  field-pieces.  In  order  to  compel  this  adversary,  whom  he 
could  neither  attack  nor  leave  behind  him  with  impunity,  to  come 
out,  Sibley  tried,  by  a  bold  manoeuvre,  to  menace  his  communica- 
tions with  Albuquerque  and  Santa  F^.  On  the  right  bank  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  facing  Fort  Craig,  there  is  a  succession  of  sand-banks 
extending  from  the  margin  of  the  river  into  the  interior.  These 
were  thought  to  be  inaccessible  to  wagons,  and  this  obstacle  com- 
pelled all  the  trains  coming  from  the  south  to  pass  under  the  guns 
of  Fort  Craig.  Sibley,  better  informed  by  his  scouts,  was  not 
afraid  of  venturino;  iuto  the  wilderness.  On  the  mornino;  of  the 
19th  of  February,  while  the  Federals  were  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  about  to  retreat,  he  was  crossing  the  Rio  Grande, 
which  is  almost  everywhere  fordable,  about  ten  kilometres  below 
the  fort.  He  then  proceeded  with  all  his  army,  his  artillery,  and 
his  baggage  across  the  heavy  sands  which  the  Federals  had  erro- 
neously considered  as  a  sufficient  protection.  Canby,  astonished 
at  such  high  daring,  determined  at  once  to  occujsy,  with  three  bat- 
talions of  regulars,  some  hills  situated  in  front  of  the  fort,  whence 
he  could  watch  the  movements  of  his  adversaries.  The  march  of 
the  Texans,  however,  had  been  toilsome  in  the  extreme.  In  order 
to  drag  their  wagons  through  the  sand,  where  they  sank  up  to  the 
hubs,  it  had  been  found  necessary  to  double,  and  even  triple,  the 
teams.  The  mules,  exhausted  by  fatigue,  had  no  water  to  slacken 
their  thirst ;  this  was  also  wanting  to  the  men,  and  a  night  of 
great  suffering  was  the  consequence.  Next  morning  the  Federal 
regulars,  supported  by  two  regiments  of  volunteers,  tried  to  bar 
the  passage  of  the  Texans.  But  the  latter,  rather  stimulated  by 
their  privations  to  open  for  themselves  a  passage  to  the  river  above 
Fort  Craig,  were  not  intimidated  by  this  demonstration.  Cannon- 
shots  were  exchanged  at  a  long  distance;  and  before  losing  a  single 
man  the  greater  part  of  the  Union  troops  fell  back  in  disorder, 


618  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA.    ■ 

and  sought  shelter  among  the  recesses  of  the  hills  adjacent  to  the 
river.  Among  the  volunteers  Kit  Carson's  regiment  was  the 
only  one  not  affected  by  the  panic;  the  regulars  themselves 
showed  no  firmness  during  this  first  trial.  Such  conduct  was  a 
bad  omen  for  the  future;  and  General  Canby  found  himself 
obliged  to  take  his  soldiers  back  into  the  fort  to  reorganize  their 
ranks  and  restore  them  to  some  degree  of  equanimity. 

On  the  evening  of  that  conflict,  however,  the  Texans  had  not 
yet  reached  the  borders  of  the  river,  because,  not  being  able  to 
approach  it  under  the  guns  of  the  fort,  they  were  obliged  to  pro- 
ceed about  twelve  kilometres  higher  up  to  find,  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  hamlet  of  Valverde,  a  point  where  the  inaccessible  acclivities 
which  surrounded  it  might  give  place  to  an  easier  ascent.  Con- 
sequently, that  second  night  was  even  more  trying  than  the  pre- 
ceding one.  The  mules,  crazy  with  thirst  after  two  days  of  in- 
cessant work,  broke  all  their  fastenings  to  rush  towards  the  river, 
whose  vapors  were  wafted  by  the  evening  breeze  as  far  as  the 
desert.  The  Federal  scouts  jDicked  up  more  than  one  hundred  of 
them;  and  when,  on  the  morning  of  the  21st,  the  Texans  resumed 
their  march,  they  were  obliged  to  burn  a  number  of  their  wagons 
thus  deprived  of  teams.  The  loss  of  these  means  of  transportation 
would  have  been  fatal  to  them  if  Canby  had  been  able  to  face 
them  with  troops  inured  to  war.  In  spite  of  the  previous  day's 
experience,  he  resolved  to  dispute  the  possession  of  Valverde,  and 
not  to  allow  them  to  establish  themselves  upon  his  line  of  commu- 
nication without  a  fight.  Sibley  thus  far  succeeded  in  drawing  him 
off  from  the  protection  of  his  fortifications. 

While  the  vanguard  of  the  Confederates  was  at  last  approach- 
ing the  river  at  Valverde,  and  hastening  towards  its  waters  to 
slacken  their  thirst,  the  Federals,  who  had  ascended  the  river  by 
the  right  bank,  appeared  upon  the  opposite  shore  and  opened  fire 
upon  the  head  of  their  column.  Canby  had  pushed  forward  the 
three  battalions  of  regulars,  his  two  batteries,  two  squadrons  of 
cavalry,  and  Carson's  regiment.  He  followed  them  closely  with 
that  of  Colonel  Pino,  thus  bringing  all  his  available  troops  into 
line — about  one  thousand  five  hundred  meu — after  having  secured 
the  safety  of  the  fort.  The  Federal  artillery,  well  served,  obliged 
tie  Confederates  to  retire  from  the  borders  of  the  river,  which  the 


SHILOH.  519 

small  Union  army  immediately  forded  in  order  to  take  position 
on  the  left  bank,  in  front  of  them.  Canby  drew  up  his  soldiers 
on  the  open  spaces  of  ground  constituting  the  Valverde  farm,  with 
the  river  at  his  back,  and  facing  some  woods  and  brush,  behind 
which  Sibley  had  halted  his  men.  Being  fully  aware  that  in 
order  to  impart  strength  tp  his  line  he  could  only  rely  upon  his 
artillery,  Canby  had  posted  Captain  McRae's  battery  on  the  left, 
and  Lieutenant  Hall's  two  guns  on  the  right,  assigning  no  other 
task  to  the  infantry  than  that  of  supporting  them. 

Up  to  two  o^clock  the  fighting  was  confined  to  a  cannonade,  in 
which  the  artillery  of  the  Federals,  being  better  served  than  that 
of  their  adversaries,  had  a  manifest  advantage.  Conscious  of  this 
superiority,  and  seeing  the  enemy  take  shelter  in  the  woods  in- 
stead of  coming  forward  to  dispute  the  possession  of  the  river, 
Canby  felt  already  certain  of  victory,  and  was  about  to  order  a 
forward  movement  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  Texans  back 
into  the  desert  which  they  had  just  crossed,  when  the  latter  sud- 
denly took  the  oifensive.  Their  rear-guard  had  been  brought  into 
line,  and  Colonel  Green,  of  the  Fifth  Texas,  which  was  in  front, 
had  received  the  command  of  the  whole  army  from  Sibley,  who 
was  sick.  He  immediately  made  arrangements  to  throw  his  in- 
trepid soldiers  upon  the  Federal  artillerj^,  the  galling  fire  of  which 
was  beginning  to  affect  them.  On  the  left  his  cavalry  was  pre- 
paring to  charge  Hall's  guns,  while  a  portion  of  his  infantry  ad- 
vanced in  the  centre  as  far  as  the  skirt  of  the  wood,  to  occupy  the 
attention  of  the  Federals.  In  the  mean  while,  he  massed  two 
regiments  on  the  right,  his  own,  upon  which  he  particularly  re- 
lied, being  one  of  them,  and  directed  them  against  McRae's  battery. 

The  attack  of  the  cavalry  was  easily  repulsed,  but  not  so  that 
of  the  infantry.  The  Texans,  numbering  about  one  thousand, 
rushed,  with  their  customary  cries,  into  the  space  of  a  few  hun- 
dred metres  which  separated  them  from  the  Federal  guns.  They 
flung  the  carbine  over  their  shoulders  to  grasp  the  two  weapons 
which  in  their  eyes  represent  the  two  different  civilizations  of  the 
United  States  and  Mexico,  between  which  they  are  placed — the 
revolver  and  the  bowie-knife.  As  soon  as  McRae  perceives  them 
he  directs  his  guns,  loaded  with  grape-shot,  upon  their  compact 
mass.     The  first  discharge  has  full  effect,  without,  however,  stag- 


620  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

gering  them  for  an  instant.  The  Federal  gunners  have  time  to 
reload  their  pieces  and  to  make  another  bloody  breach  in  the  Con- 
federate column,  which  is  as  promptly  closed  uj).  The  space  of 
ground  already  overrun  by  the  Texans  is  strewed  with  the  dead 
and  the  dying,  but  the  projectiles  only  check  the  career  of  those 
they  have  struck.  The  grape-shot  of  a  few  guns  cannot  reach 
them  all,  and  those  whom  death  spares,  confident  of  success,  still 
pursue  their  onAvard  course  without  stopping  to  fire  a  single  mus- 
ket. At  their  approach  the  Federal  infantry  desert  the  guns 
which  they  were  to  defend.  Regulars  and  volunteers,  equally 
deaf  to  the  exhortations  of  their  officers,  take  to  flight  before  an 
enemy  less  numerous  than  themselves.  It  is  in  vain  that  the 
Federal  gunners  set  them  an  example  of  indomitable  courage. 
"When  the  irresistible  tide  of  Texans  reaches  them  at  last,  they 
rally  round  their  pieces ;  and  encouraged  by  the  voice  of  McRae, 
who,  pistol  in  hand,  has  mounted  astride  on  one  of  the  guns,  they 
suffer  themselves  to  be  hacked  to  pieces  rather  than  abandon 
them.  In  an  instant  they  are  all  killed  or  wounded.  The  Texans 
turn  the  guns  they  have  captured  upon  the  Federal  centre,  and 
rush  in  pursuit  of  the  troops  who  have  not  had  the  courage  to  con- 
tend for  those  trophies.  It  is  enough  for  them  to  show  themselves 
armed  with  the  revolver  to  put  these  new  adversaries  also  to  flight. 
The  whole  Federal  line,  in  the  midst  of  the  utmost  confusiou, 
rushes  headlong  towards  the  E,io  Grande,  which  it  recrosses  in 
breathless  haste.  It  never  stops  until  it  reaches  the  breastworks 
of  Fort  Craig,  leaving  in  the  hands  of  the  conqueror  the  balance 
of  its  artillery,  with  a  large  quantity  of  other  arms.  The  rout  of 
the  Unionists  was  too  sudden  and  rapid  to  leave  many  prisoners 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  They  had  sixty  killed  and  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  wounded.  The  losses  of  the  Texans  were  nearly 
equal,  a  few  of  their  bravest  officers  having  paid  with  their  lives 
for  the  victory  which  was  due  to  their  example. 

Timidly  shut  up  in  the  fort,  the  Federals  were  no  longer  in  a 
condition  to  molest  their  adversaries.  Sibley  felt  that  there  was 
no  necessity  for  him  to  take  any  further  notice  of  them ;  and  as- 
cending the  Rio  Grande,  he  boldly  advanced  with  his  little  army, 
whose  strength  had  been  greatly  increased  by  success,  into  the  in- 
terior of  New  Mexico.    He  no  longer  met  with  any  serious  resist- 


SHILOH.  521 

ance.  He  left  his  wounded  and  sick  at  Socorro,  reached  Albuquer- 
que, where  he  found  abundant  provisions,  and  proceeded  thence 
to  Santa  Fe,  bearing  to  the  right  by  the  Apache  Pass  defile,  near 
which  stands  Fort  Union,  situated  at  a  distance  of  ab\)ut  twenty- 
five  kilometres  from  the  capital.  Anticipating  no  resistance,  he 
allowed  a  detachment  of  about  one  thousand  men  to  proceed  in 
advance  under  Colonel  Scurry.  On  the  24th  of  March  the  latter 
found  the  Apache  Pass  occupied  by  a  few  hundred  regulars  and 
about  one  thousand  volunteers,  who  had  come  from  Colorado  by 
forced  marches.  After  dispersing  the  Federal  scouts,  the  Texans 
arrived  in  front  of  the  enemy's  position,  which  was  defended  by  a 
battery  of  artillery.  They  renewed,  without  hesitation,  the  .old 
attack  which  had  proved  so  successful  at  Valverde.  The  Federal 
artillery,  still  well  served,  inflicted  upon  them  some  terrible  losses. 
As  to  the  infantry,  it  made  a  somewhat  better  resistance  than  that 
of  Canby,  and  held  them  sufficiently  long  in  check  to  secure  the 
safety  of  the  guns.  The  Texans  themselves  came  near  being  sur- 
rounded by  a  few  companies,  which,  passing  behind  them,  had 
fallen  upon  their  train.  But  the  rest  of  the  line  being  weakened, 
that  detachment  was  obliged  to  beat  a  speedy  retreat.  The  Fed- 
erals, whose  losses  amounted  to  twenty-three  killed,  fifty  wounded, 
and  about  sixty  prisoners,  fell  back  in  the  direction  of  Colorado. 
This  new  success  cost  Sibley  thirty-six  killed  and  sixty  wounded, 
together  with  the  lives  of  some  of  his  best  officers.  It  delivered 
a  great  part  of  New  Mexico  into  the  hands  of  the  Confederates ; 
but  they  were  not  able  to  hold  that  region  which  had  been  con- 
quered in  such  a  brilliant  manner  for  any  length  of  time.  The 
people  of  Santa  Fe  did  not  conceal  their  hostility.  They  found 
but  few  resources  in  that  city,  whose  entire  intercourse  was  con- 
fined to  Colorado  and  Missouri,  and  their  communications  with 
Texas  became  very  difficult.  Finally,  Canby,  taking  advantage 
of  the  respite  granted  him,  was  preparing  to  harass  their  rear. 
In  less  than  a  fortnight  after  his  entrance  into  Santa  Fe,  Sibley 
found  himself  under  the  necessity  of  evacuating  that  city  to  con- 
centrate his  forces  at  Albuquerque,  where  his  depots  were  already 
menaced.  He  had  scarcely  reached  that  post  when  he  realized  the 
impossibility  of  remaining  in  New  Mexico,  and  on  the  12th  of 
April  he  retraced  his  steps  towards  Texas.     He  soon  found  him- 


522  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

self  in  the  presence  of  Canby,  who  was  waiting  for  him  with  a 
superior  force  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande.  But  he 
dreaded  to  bring  on  a  fight  the  issue  of  which  might  prove  fatal 
to  his  troops,  already  reduced  and  fatigued ;  and  in  order  to  avoid 
it,  he  concentrated  his  troops  upon  the  right  bank;  then,  abandon- 
ing all  his  wagons,  and  loading  his  provisions  upon  the  mules 
which  had  been  used  in  drawing  them,  he  struck  out  for  the  open 
desert,  dragging  his  artillery  behind  him  with  extraordinary  eifort. 
This  time  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  make  a  circuit  across  those 
terrible  solitudes,  which  consumed,  not  three,  but  more  than  ten, 
days.  Finally,  after  a  painful  march,  the  Confederates  reached  a 
point  on  the  river  bank  where  they  could  not  be  disturbed.  While 
they  were  resting  in  the  vicinity  of  Fort  Bliss,  Canby,  who  had 
not  even  thought  of  pursuing  them,  was  quietly  taking  permanent 
possession  of  New  Mexico. 

We  must  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  more  important 
events,  which  were  taking  place  in  the  State  of  Tennessee  at  the 
same  period,  and  which  were  destined  to  exercise  so  great  an  in- 
fluence over  the  entire  course  of  the  war.  On  the  11th  of  March 
the  President  had  relieved  General  McClellan  of  the  supreme 
control  of  military  affairs,  and  had  reserved  to  himself  that  task, 
so  onerous  for  a  man  without  experience.  But  he  had  not  yet 
aggravated  this  error  of  judgment  by  those  lamentable  attempts 
at  strategy  which  a  few  months  later  caused  so  many  disasters  to 
the  Federal  arms.  He  had,  on  the  contrary,  extenuated  his  fault 
by  investing  Halleck  with  the  command  of  all  the  armies  situated 
west  of  the  Alleghanies. 

The  co-operation  of  the  armies  of  Buell  and  Grant,  which  had 
hitherto  been  subservient  to  direct  orders  from  Washington,  was 
thus  better  assured.  Grant  resumed  once  more  the  command,  of 
which  he  had  been  temporarily  deprived,  and  received  consider- 
able reinforcements,  which  enabled  him  to  continue  an  offensive 
campaign.  To  the  three  divisions  whose  movements  we  have 
followed  in  front  of  Donelson  there  were  added  three  others, 
under  Generals  Hurlbut,  Prentiss,  and  Sherman.  That  of  the 
latter  was  brought  back  from  Columbus,  where  it  had.  been  sent 
after  the  evacuation  of  that  post  by  the  Confederates.  All  three 
were  composed  of  new  men,  who  had  never  marched  nor  fought, 


SHILOH.  523 

and  were  as  yet  ignorant  of  the  very  first  principles  of  discipline. 
The  fleet  of  transports  assembled  at  Fort  Henry,  and  convoyed 
by  two  wooden  gnn-boats,  the  others  being  in  the  Mississippi, 
was  again  employed  in  enabling  the  array  of  invasion  to  make  a 
great  step  forward.  The  course  of  the  Tennessee  has  been  de- 
scribed elsewhere.  After  running  for  a  long  distance  from  north- 
east to  south-west,  along  the  foot  of  the  Alleghanies,  it  pursues  a 
course  almost  due  west  for  nearly  one  hundred  and  eighty  kilo- 
metres. Towards  the  middle  of  this  part  of  its  course  it  is  inter- 
sected, near  Florence,  by  shallows,  called  Muscle  Shoals,  which 
do  not  allow  large  vessels  to  proceed  higher  up,  and  which  at 
times  even  completely  interrupt  its  navigation.  Finally,  at  East- 
port  it  again  resumes  its  original  course  to  run  directly  north  as 
far  as  Paducah.  The  distance  in  a  straight  line  between  those 
two  points  is  about  two  hundred  and  sixty  kilometres.  Fort 
Henry  is  situated  on  the  lower  part  of  the  river,  about  two  hun- 
dred kilometres  below  Eastport.  This  path,  opened  by  the  bat- 
tles of  February  into  the  heart  of  the  rebel  States,  was  the  one 
to  be  followed  by  Grant.  It  had  been  reconnoitred  during  the 
early  part  of  March  by  C.  F.  Smith,  who,  after  making  a  feint 
against  Eastport,  had  landed  his  division  upon  the  left  bank  of 
the  river  at  an  almost  desert  place  called  Pittsburg  Landing.  A 
few  log  huts  alone  marked  the  spot,  where  a  rough  road  termi- 
nated at  the  river  bank,  and  where,  before  the  war,  steamers 
stopped  to  land  provisions  and  load  with  cotton.  The  small  city 
of  Savannah,  situated  on  the  right  bank,  eleven  or  twelve  kilo- 
metres lower  down,  was  selected  as  a  depot  for  the  army,  the  en- 
tire supplies  of  which  were  naturally  obtained  by  water.  It  was 
between  this  city  and  Eastport  that,  on  the  17th  of  March,  Grant 
joined  his  troops,  scattered  along  both  sides  of  the  river.  Leav- 
ing his  headquarters  at  Savannah,  he  assembled  five  divisions  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Pittsburg  Landing,  and  stationed  the  sixth, 
under  Lewis  Wallace,  at  Crump's  Landing,  a  few  kilometres 
lower  down,  on  the  same  side  of  the  river.  These  two  points  had 
been  selected  by  the  Federal  general  as  a  base  of  operations  for 
the  new  campaign,  which  was  to  bring  him  face  to  face  with  the 
Confederates  upon  the  frontier  of  Mississippi ;  but  he  was  not  yet 
ji  a  condition  to  undertake  it.    As  we  shall  find  him  again  in  the 


524  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

same  positions  three  weeks  later,  we  shall  take  advantage  of  hia 
inaction  to  indicate  the  movements  which  were  being  made  at  the 
same  time  at  the  two  extremities  of  the  line  of  which  he  occupied 
the  centre. 

Buell  had  met  with  no  resistance  during  his  march  from  the 
borders  of  Green  River  to  those  of  the  Cumberland.  Johnston 
had  not  stopped  even  once  for  the  purpose  of  holding  him  in 
check,  and  had  left  no  trophies  in  his  hands.  After  the  evacua- 
tion of  Nashville,  the  Confederate  general  had  to  choose  between 
two  lines  of  retreat:  he  could  either  follow  the  Tennessee  and 
Alabama  Railroad,  in  order  to  keep  himself  in  communication 
with  the  Mississippi  valley,  or  the  Nashville  and  Chattanooga 
Railroad,  so  as  to  rest  upon  the  mountains.  He  preferred  this  lat- 
ter route,  either  because  he  was  afraid  of  seeing  the  former  inter- 
cepted at  Eastport,  as  it  actually  was,  or  because  he  wished  to 
drav/  Buell  far  away  from  the  large  rivers,  and  to  separate  him 
as  much  as  possible  from  Grant's  army.  He  halted,  as  we  have 
said,  at  Murfreesborough,  a  station  situated  about  fifty-two  kilo- 
metres south-east  of  Nashville,  which  will  play  a  conspicuous  part 
throughout  the  history  of  the  war.  Buell,  after  taking  up  his 
quarters  at  Nashville,  and  placing  himself  in  communication  with 
Grant's  army,  contented  himself  with  observing  him  without 
seriously  molesting  him.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Grant's  troops, 
transported  by  way  of  the  Tennessee,  landed  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Savannah  j  they  thus  found  themselves  about  three  hundred 
kilometres  south-west  of  Nashville,  and  the  two  hostile  armies 
were  entirely  separated.  But  Johnston,  far  from  taking  advan- 
tage of  this  to  attempt  to  recover  a  part  of  the  ground  he  had  lost 
in  the  east,  took  yet  another  step  backward,  and  led  his  army, 
exhausted  by  so  many  fruitless  marches,  as  far  as  Bridgeport  and 
Chattanooga,  on  the  Upper  Tennessee.  This  retreat  was  no  doubt 
rendered  necessary  by  the  difficulty  of  subsisting  his  soldiers  at 
Murfreesborough,  so  near  to  an  enemy  who  had  the  advantage  of 
numbers,  but  it  was  also  necessary  for  the  execution  of  the  plan 
of  campaign  which  he  had  formed.  As  Buell  did  not  come  to  look 
for  him  in  the  east,  he  had  resolved  to  proceed  rapidly  to  the  west 
to  dispute  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  with  Grant ;  to  accom- 


SHILOH.  525 

plisli  this  object,  it  was  necessary  to  post  himself  at  Chattanooga, 
which  was  the  nucleus  of  the  various  railways  he  was  to  use. 
There  were  hardly  any  musket-shots  fired  by  the  scouts  of  either 
army  during  the  month  of  March. 

On  the  extreme  left  of  Buell,  Garfield  had  remained  in  the 
mountains  of  Kentucky  Avhich  adjoin  West  "Virginia;  and  in 
order  to  be  able  to  pursue  the  Confederate  bands  that  overran 
them  more  effectually,  he  had  taken  up  his  quarters  at  Piketon, 
in  the  heart  of  those  mountains.  On  the  16th  of  March,  by  a 
bold  and  difficult  advance,  Avith  one  thousand  men,  he  surprised 
a  small  Confederate  brigade  upon  the  elevated  defile  of  Pound 
Gap,  and  dispersed  them  after  a  slight  engagement. 

On  the  same  day,  at  a  distance  of  more  than  six  hundred  and 
fifty  kilometres  from  this  point,  the  Confederate  partisan  Morgan 
pushed  a  bold  raid  as  far  as  Gallatin,  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Cumberland,  where  he  gathered  some  booty.  But  he  was  imme- 
diately after  obliged  to  fall  back  as  far  as  Shelbyville,  while  a 
detachment  of  Federal  cavalry,  which  in  turn  entered  McMinn- 
ville,  south-east  of  Murfreesborough,  on  the  26th  of  March  put 
to  flight  the  troops  who  had  come  to  dispute  the  possession  of 
that  place. 

The  victory  of  Donelson  was  bearing  its  fruits,  and  the  Fed- 
erals were  masters  of  the  largest  portion  of  the  State  of  Tennes- 
see. Having  full  confidence  in  the  power  of  their  fleet  when 
supported  by  an  army,  they  prepared  to  renew  the  tactics  which 
had  already  proved  so  successful  against  the  new  defences  of  the 
Confederates  on  the  Mississippi.  Foote,  as  we  have  stated,  had 
found  the  position  of  Columbus  evacuated  in  the  early  part  of 
March.  He  had  immediately  descended  the  Mississippi  as  far  as 
Island  No.  10,  the  cannon  of  which  informed  him  that  the  enemy 
was  at  work.  While  Sherman  was  embarking  for  Columbus,  the 
troops  which  had  been  fighting  for  some  time  in  Eastern  Mis- 
souri, after  being  consolidated  into  one  division  of  three  strong 
brigades,  under  command  of  General  Pope,  landed  on  the  28th 
of  February  at  Commerce,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi. 
On  the  2d  of  March  they  dispersed  the  small  force  of  J.  Thomp- 
son, capturing  six  guns,  and  on  the  following  day  they  appeared 
before  New  Madrid ;  they  found  that  village  surrounded  by  con- 


526  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

siclerable  works,  occupied  by  a  numerous  garrison,  and  supplied 
with  a  poiverful  artillery. 

On  the  Confederate  side,  the  defence  of  the  Mississippi  had 
been  entrusted  to  Beauregard,  but  he  only  reached  Columbus  to 
learn  of  the  capture  of  Donelson,  and  his  first  act  in  the  exercise 
of  his  new  authority  was  to  order  the  evacuation  of  the  fort  which 
had  been  too  hastily  called  the  Gibraltar  of  the  West.  He  found, 
however,  scattered  over  the  vast  expanse  of  territory  confided  to 
him,  the  elements  of  quite  a  respectable  army,  to  which  he  was 
bringing  the  prestige  of  the  victory  at  Bull  Run.  His  name 
could  not  fail  to  infuse  martial  ardor  into  the  Army  of  the 
Mississippi,  of  which  these  troops  were  destined  to  form  the 
nucleus.  He  hastened  to  reorganize  Polk's  regiments,  which 
had  just  left  Columbus,  and  addressed  an  urgent  appeal  to 
his  friend  General  Braxton  Bragg.  This  stern  and  resolute 
officer,  who  was  commanding  at  Mobile,  and  had  already  im- 
parted a  certain  military  education  to  the  troops  he  had  assem- 
bled there,  immediately  started  for  the  North  with  all  the  forces 
at  his  disposal. 

Beauregard  was  fully  aware  that  the  fall  of  Donelson  and  of 
Nashville  rendered  all  the  defences  of  the  Mississippi  above 
Memphis  powerless.  It  was,  therefore,  near  that  city  that  he 
prepared  a  system  of  works  capable  of  definitely  checking  the 
Federals.  But  to  retard  their  progress,  and  gain  time  to  finish 
those  works,  he  had  fortified  New  Madrid  and  Island  No.  10. 
After  making  what  resistance  he  could,  he  intended  to  fall  back 
upon  his  true  line  of  defence,  with  the  determination  to  attack  the 
enemy  in  an  open  country  rather  than  allow  himself  to  be  shut  up 
like  Floyd  in  entrenchments.  The  six  gun-boats  of  Commodore 
Hollins,  which  had  arrived  from  New  Orleans  to  support  the 
army  of  Beauregard,  and  to  dispute  the  mastery  of  the  Missis- 
sippi with  Foote,  had  taken  position  between  New  Madrid  and 
Island  No.  10. 

It  is  known  that  the  first  of  these  two  points  lies  both  below 
and  north-west  "of  the  second.  The  Federals,  therefore,  in  order 
to  take  possession  of  it,  could  land  at  a  short  distance  without 
passing  under  the  fire  of  the  second ;  and  once  masters  of  it,  it 
would  be  easy  for  them  to  riddle  any  vessel  with  balls  that  should 


SHILOH.  527 

attempt  to  go  up  the  river  for  the  purpose  of  revictualling  Island 
No.  10.  Consequently,  the  Confederates  had  concentrated  all 
their  available  forces  for  the  defence  of  New  Madrid.  They  had 
erected  two  large  earthworks,  which,  besides  the  field  artillery, 
were  armed  with  sixteen  guns  of  large  calibre.  Hollins's  gun- 
boats, anchored  in  an  elbow  of  the  river,  had  complete  command 
of  the  low  and  marshy  grounds  which  surrounded  them.  Pope 
saw  at  once  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  reduce  these  forts  with 
the  cannon  at  his  disposal,  and  found  himself  under  the  necessity 
of  undertaking  a  regular  siege.  While  waiting  for  the  heavy 
guns  which  he  had  ordered  from  Cairo,  and  which  were  to  be 
landed  above  Island  No.  10,  he  sent  a  portion  of  his  troops,  with 
his  field-batteries,  to  occupy  Point  Pleasant,  about  fifteen  kilo- 
metres lower  down,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river.  From  that 
place  they  were  to  intercept  any  reinforcements  coming  up  the 
Mississippi,  which  could  pass  through  a  narrow  isthmus  to  reach 
Island  No.  10  directly.  This  operation  was  successfully  conducted, 
despite  the  fire  of  the  enemy's  gun-boats.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
Confederates  continued  to  reinforce  New  Madrid ;  and  the  troops 
assembled  there,  under  General  McCown,  numbered  nine  thou- 
sand men,  when  at  last  three  twenty-four-pounders  and  one  mor- 
tar, dragged  across  a  marshy  country  with  great  difficulty,  arrived 
in  the  trenches  of  the  besiegers.  These  guns  were  placed  in  posi- 
tion on  the  12th  of  March,  not  without  losses  from  the  fire  of  the 
Confederates,  at  eight  hundred  metres  from  their  works.  They 
immediately  opened  a  brisk  cannonade  against  the  latter.  Hol- 
lins's gun-boats  came  down  from  Island  No.  10  to  participate  in 
a  fight  which  seemed  to  continue  the  whole  day  with  equal  chances 
on  both  sides.  Pope  had  one  of  his  guns  dismounted  and  about 
fifty  men  disabled ;  but  the  Confederates  were  discouraged  by  the 
unexpected  appearance  of  that  siege  artillery,  and  took  advantage 
of  a  frightful  storm  which  prevailed  during  the  night  to  conceal 
their  precipitate  embarkation.  They  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
Federals,  who  were  astonished  at  their  easy  success,  well-stored 
magazines,  and  on  the  parapets  sixteen  guns  ineffectually  spiked. 
These  guns  were  immediately  ranged  along  the  borders  of  the 
river,  forming  at  Point  Pleasant  a  powerful  battery,  which  effect- 
ually blockaded  the  course  of  the  Mississippi.     From  that  mo- 


528  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

ment  the  garrison  of  Island  No.  10  found  it  impossible  to  obtain 
supplies,  except  by  carting  on  land  the  provisions  landed  on  the 
left  side  of  the  river  below  the  last  of  the  Federal  batteries. 

But  in  order  to  thoroughly  invest  that  island,  Pope  should 
have  been  able  to  cross  to  the  other  bank  of  the  river,  opposite 
New  Madrid,  which  was  in  the  enemy's  hands.  It  is  true  that  a 
small  body  of  cavalry  was  operating  below  Columbus,  which,  on 
the  12th  of  March,  had  captured  from  the  Confederates  an  insig- 
nificant post  at  Paris,  in  Tennessee ;  but  it  was  too  weak  to  un- 
dertake such  a  task,  and  Pope  had  not  even  a  barge  to  convey  his 
soldiers  to  the  other  side  of  that  immense  sheet  of  water  which 
was  spread  out  before  him.  In  fact,  Foote's  fleet,  after  taking 
possession  of  the  little  town  of  Hickman,  which  was  the  terminus 
of  a  line  of  railway,  and  which  had  served  as  his  dep6t,  was  held 
in  check  by  the  batteries  of  Island  No.  10.  It  was  now  the  be- 
ginning of  April ;  and  for  the  last  fortnight  this  fleet,  armed  with 
mortars  and  Parrott  guns,  as  well  as  the  land-batteries  erected  by 
Pope,  had  been  vainly  exchanging  shots  with  the  heavy  guns 
placed  by  Beauregard  on  all  the  points  which  commanded  the 
sinuous  current- valley  (thalweg)  of  the  Mississippi.  This  regular 
bombardment  ceased  at  last  to  produce  any  impression.  It,  how- 
ever, diverted  the  attention  of  the  Confederates  from  the  gigantic 
work  which  their  patient  and  laborious  adversaries  had  just  un- 
dertaken behind  the  wooded  screen  bordering  the  margin  of  the 
river.  Unable  to  force  a  passage  in  front  of  the  Confederate  bat- 
teries, they  had  determined  to  avoid  the  elbow  of  the  Mississippi 
by  cutting  a  canal  across  the  peninsula  formed  by  it,  through 
which  the  fleet  should  debouch  into  the  river  in  the  vicinity  of 
New  Madrid.  This  peninsula  is  more  than  fifteen  miles  in  width 
at  the  most  accessible  point.  It  was  for  the  most  part  covered 
with  old  trees,  the  feet  of  which  were  bathed  to  the  depth  of  more 
than  one  metre  by  stagnant  water,  proceeding  from  the  infiltra- 
tions of  the  river.  A  volunteer  regiment,  called  a  regiment  of 
engineers,  dug  a  channel  across  this  isthmus  fifteen  metres  in 
width,  and  accessible  to  all  flat-bottomed  vessels.  Although  one- 
half  of  its  course  ran  across  the  forest,  where  the  trunks  had  to  be 
sawed  below  the  surface  of  the  water,  the  passage  was  opened  in 
nineteen  days.     This  work,  boldly  conceived  and  cleverly  exe- 


SHILOH.  529 

cuted,  presented  a  striking  proof  of  the  industrious  character  of 
the  American  army,  and,  surviving  the  circumstances  which  caused 
it  to  be  undertaken,  will  long  remain,  no  doubt,  a  monument  to 
remind  the  peaceful  traveller  on  the  Mississippi  of  the  troublous 
epoch  we  are  narrating. 

The  fleet,  however,  was  not  satisfied  to  occupy  the  enemy  with 
a  fruitless  bombardment.  On  the  1st  of  April  the  crews,  assisted 
by  a  few  volunteers  from  Pope's  army,  had  landed  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  river,  and  taking  one  of  the  principal  Confederate 
batteries  by  surprise  had  spiked  six  of  its  guns.  Finally,  when 
the  channel  was  nearly  comf)leted,  one  of  the  gun-boats,  which 
until  then  had  not  dared  to  attempt  a  passage  under  the  fire  of 
Island  No.  10,  made  that  dangerous  experiment.  The  Carondelet 
reached  New  Madrid  during  the  night  of  the  4th— 5th  of  April 
without  being  struck  by  a  single  ball.  On  the  morning  of  the 
6th  another  vessel,  the  Pittsburg,  cast  anchor  near  her,  after  per- 
forming that  perilous  feat  with  the  same  good  fortune.  The  Con- 
federates, who  were  not  prepared  for  the  display  of  so  much  dar- 
ing, were  still  more  astonished  when,  a  few  days  later,  they  saw 
a  whole  fleet  of  transports  loaded  with  troops  and  several  floating- 
batteries  debouch  from  a  creek  near  New  Madrid  which  served 
as  the  head  of  the  canal.  Notwithstanding  the  reports  of  their 
spies,  they  had  been  unwilling  to  believe  in  the  accomplishment  of 
such  an  enterprise.  The  astonishment  of  the  soldiers  was  the  greater 
because  their  position  had  been  represented  to  them  as  impregnable. 

Beauregard  no  sooner  reached  the  West  than  he  became  sen- 
sible that,  notwithstanding  its  natural  strength,  Island  No.  10 
never  could  serve  as  a  point  of  support  to  the  army  he  was  form- 
ing. It  was  to  little  purpose  that  this  island  enabled  him  to 
keep  at  bay  the  soldiers  of  Pope  and  the  gun-boats  of  Foote ; 
the  presence  of  Grant  almost  close  upon  his  rear,  at  Pittsburg 
Landing,  did  not  allow  him  to  remain  with  his  army  in  a  position 
which  was  thus  turned  on  the  land  side.  He  had  gatliei-ed  to- 
gether his  best  troops  under  the  orders  of  Pope,  and  had  appointed, 
as  their  place  of  rendezvous,  Corinth,  an  important  railroad  junc- 
tion, situated  near  Pittsburg  Landing ;  this  corps  was  to  serve  as 
a  nucleus  for  the  new  army,  with  which  he  calculated  to  reconquer 
all  the  ground  lost  since  the  1st  of  January.     But  on  leaving  them 

Vol.  I.— 34 


530  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

he  had  taken  care  to  say  a  few  M'ords  of  encouragement  to  the  six 
or  seven  thousand  men  he  left  at  Island  No.  10.  Moreover,  Gen- 
eral McCown,  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  the  command,  had  taken 
advantage  of  the  time  employed  by  the  Federals  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  canal  to  cover  the  left  bank  of  the  Mississippi  with 
batteries.  He  thus  preserved  open  communications  between  the 
island  and  the  main  land,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  his  troops, 
which  were  sufficiently  numerous  to  oppose  the  crossing  of  such 
a  river,  could,  with  the  support  of  a  powerful  artillery,  hold  those 
of  Pope  in  check.  But  the  remembrance  of  Donelson  exercised 
a  fatal  influence  upon  men  who  had  already  been  obliged  to  evac- 
uate the  position  of  Columbus  without  a  fight,  after  having  been 
taught  to  believe  it  impregnable ;  and  a  change  of  commander  at 
the  last  hour  increased  their  trouble.  General  McCown,  having 
been  relieved  on  the  5th  of  April  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  was 
succeeded  by  General  Mackall. 

At  the  sight  of  Foote's  vessels  assembled  before  New  Madrid, 
Mackall  posted  all  his  available  troops  so  as  to  repulse  a  landing. 
But  the  fire  of  the  two  gun-boats  of  the  enemy  sufficed  to  keep 
them  at  a  distance ;  all  his  batteries  were  silenced ;  and  on  the 
evening  of  the  7th  the  first  Federal  soldiers  who  set  foot  on  land, 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  found  no  one  to  oppose  them. 
Abandoning  the  feeble  garrison  of  artillery  soldiers  which  had 
been  left  at  Island  No.  10,  Mackall's  corps  had  retired  with  so 
much  speed  that  its  flight  soon  became  a  perfect  rout.  An  unin- 
terrupted chain  of  lakes  and  swamps,  formed  at  several  kilometres 
from  the  left  bank  by  a  rise  in  the  bed  of  the  Mississippi,  stretched 
out  in  a  line  parallel  with  its  flow ;  this  impenetrable  barrier  cut 
off  all  retreat  towards  the  interior,  and  compelled  the  Confed- 
erates to  follow  a  strip  of  land  along  the  river  side  at  times  very 
narrow.  More  than  two  thousand  of  them  (some  reports  say 
seven  thousand)  were  stopped  in  their  flight  and  made  prisoners 
in  small  parties ;  the  remainder  scattered  in  every  direction ;  some 
wandered  about  in  the  swamps,  and  many  perished  there ;  others 
returned  to  their  homes.  Scarcely  two  hundred  reached  Memphis 
to  tell  the  story  of  their  disaster. 

In  the  mean  while,  Island  No.  10  was  occupied  without  resist- 
ance.    The  Federals  found  considerable  maUriel^  with  a  strong 


SHILOH.  531 

artillery  yet  uninjured  ;  seventy  guns  of  large  calibre,  some  of 
which  were  rifled,  constituted  the  armament  of  the  seven  forts 
which  the  bombardment  had  not  damaged.  Hollins,  beino-  in 
turn  blockaded  by  the  occupancy  of  New  Madrid,  endeavored  to 
destroy  the  fleet  he  had  uselessly  brought  so  far,  to  prevent 
its  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  But  he  had  no  time  to 
complete  that  operation.  His  principal  floating-battery,  carrying 
sixteen  guns,  instead  of  sinking,  got  adrift,  and  was  found  stranded 
upon  one  of  the  sand-banks  of  the  Mississippi ;  the  Federals  took 
possession  of  the  four  steamers  which  were  still  afloat,  and  the 
oflier  three  were  easily  raised. 

A  complete  success  had  crowned  their  ingenious  efforts  and 
their  perseverance ;  the  Mississippi  was  open  for  more  than  eighty 
miles  in  a  straight  line,  and  for  nearly  twice  that  distance,  follow- 
ing its  sinuosities,  across  the  low  and  marshy  grounds,  where  no 
fortified  works  could  be  erected,  as  far  as  the  first  bluffs,  like 
those  of  Columbus,  which  are  found  a  little  above  the  city  of 
Memphis.  These  bluffs  were  covered  with  several  works  of  con- 
siderable importance — Forts  Wright,  Randolph,  Harris,  and  Pil- 
low— which  had  been  erected  under  the  superintendence  of  Beau- 
regard at  the  very  time  when  Island  No.  10  was  being  evacuated. 
These  forts  protected  not  only  the  approaches  of  Memphis,  but 
were  intended  to  cover  the  left  wing  of  the  army  assembled  at 
Corinth  ;  and  their  fate  was  inseparably  connected  with  that  of  this 
position,  as  Columbus  had  been  before  with  that  of  Bowling  Green. 

The  intersection  of  the  two  principal  Southern  railways  had 
designated  Corinth  as  the  point  of  concentration  of  all  the  forces 
that  the  Confederates  could  dispose  of  for  resisting  Grant.  Beau- 
regard, as  we  have  stated,  had  been  the  first  to  take  up  his  quar- 
ters there  with  Polk's  corps.  Braxton  Bragg  had  rejoined  him 
towards  the  latter  part  of  March  with  the  troops  he  had  brought 
over  from  Pensacola.  Finally,  after  the  battle  of  Pea  Ridge, 
Van  Dorn  had  taken  advantage  of  Curtis's  retreat  to  abandon 
Eastern  Arkansas.  Having  turned  his  back  upon  his  late  adver- 
sary, he  was  marching  eastward,  with  all  the  forces  he  could  mus- 
ter, to  reinforce  Beauregard  with  more  than  20,000  well-trained 
soldiers  for  the  great  struggle  which  was  impending. 

In  the  mean  while,  a  similar  concentration  of  Federal  troops 


532  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

was  taking  place  on  the  Tennessee.  While  the  steamers  were 
rapidly  conveying  Grant's  soldiers  to  Pittsburg  Landing,  BuelFs 
troops  were  undertaking  a  long  march  by  land  to  join  them. 
This  general,  being  satisfied  that  Johnston,  who  had  fallen  back 
beyond  Murfreesborough,  would  not  be  able  to  make  any  demon- 
stration against  Nashville,  had  left  that  city  with  the  whole  of  his 
army,  and  was  slowly  advancing  towards  Savannah.  Once  united, 
it  was  the  intention  of  the  Federal  generals  to  march  with  all 
their  forces  against  the  enemy's  army,  to  attack  it  on  the  right,  so 
as  to  cut  off  its  communications  with  the  east,  and  to  drive  it 
back  upon  the  Mississippi  to  the  great  city  of  Memphis.  Being 
invested  in  that  place,  before  which  Foote  would  soon  appear 
with  his  gun-boats,  it  would  have  to  experience  the  same  fate  as 
tlie  garrison  of  Donelson.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  should  abandon 
Memphis,  one-third  of  the  course  of  tlie  great  river,  and  a  new 
network  of  railways,  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Unionists. 
At  the  end  of  March,  Chattanooga  was  no  longer  menaced, 
even  from  a  distance,  and  Johnston  was  no  longer  obliged  to 
cover  that  important  centre.  Nor  was  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
sufficiently  strong  to  take  advantage  of  Buell's  march,  either  to 
fall  upon  his  rear  or  to  recapture  Nashville.  He  could  only, 
therefore,  try  to  reach  the  borders  of  the  Tennessee  before  him. 
In  order  to  accomplish  this  movement,  he  had  to  make  a  great 
detour,  but  the  distance  was  very  considerably  shortened  by  a 
railroad.  Consequently,  when  Beauregard  asked  him  for  some 
reinforcements,  he  replied  by  putting  all  his  troops  in  march  to 
join  him.  A  portion  of  them  were  forwarded  by  railway,  the 
rest  on  foot.  But  when  they  arrived  at  Corinth,  they  no  longer 
presented  the  appearance  of  that  fine  army  which  had  evacuated 
Kentucky  six  weeks  before.  Sickness,  long  marches,  and  above 
all  desertion,  had  reduced  them  to  about  seventeen  thousand  men. 
Such  a  long  retreat,  during  which  they  had  not  even  once  seen  th-e 
enemy,  incessant  marches  through  the  mud,  and  bivouacking  in 
torrents  of  rain,  had  exhausted  both  the  moral  and  physical  strength 
of  those  young  soldiers.  A  large  number  of  them,  natives  of  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee,  on  seeing  their  homes  deserted,  left  the 
ranks  to  return  to  them.  Those,  however,  who  reached  Corinth 
soon  recovered  their  spirits  by  contact  with  their  comrades.     The 


SHILOH.  533 

combined  army,  of  which  Johnston  had  assumed  command,  num- 
bered on  the  2d  of  April  a  little  over  forty  thousand  men ;  it  was 
encamped  upon  the  different  lines  of  railway  which  meet  at 
Corinth,  and  which  could  thus  easily  bring  the  necessary  pro- 
visions to  the  quarters  of  each  corps.  The  position  of  Corinth 
was  the  key  of  all  that  region.  An  important  line  of  railway 
leaves  the  Mississippi  at  Memphis,  pursuing  an  easterly  direction. 
It  crosses  the  Tennessee  above  Muscle  Shoals,  and  consequently 
cannot  be  interfered  with  by  large  vessels,  and  it  continues  in  a 
north-easterly  direction  as  far  as  Chattanooga.  It  was  the  great 
artery  which  connected  the  east  of  the  Confederacy  with  the  west. 
It  was  intersected  at  Corinth  by  a  long  line,  called  the  Mobile  and 
Ohio  Railway,  which  extended  directly  from  the  north  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  placing  the  Confederate  army  in  communication 
with  the  States  adjoining  that  sea.  Pittsburg  Landing  is  only 
about  twenty-six  miles  from  Corinth,  and  the  concentration  of  the 
Federals  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tennessee  clearly  demonstrated 
to  Beauregard  that  this  junction  was  the  point  they  intended  to 
strike  to  disorganize  the  network  of  his  railroads.  It  was,  there- 
fore, on  that  spot  that  this  network  had  to  be  defended. 

The  position  occupied  by  the  Federals  at  Pittsburg  Landing 
was  also  extremely  well  chosen.  Grant  was  blamed  for  not  hav- 
ing posted  his  troops  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tennessee,  shel- 
tered from  the  attacks  of  the  Confederates ;  this  criticism  was 
unjust,  because,  in  order  to  prevent  them  from  obstructing  the 
course  of  the  river  by  the  batteries,  and  to  be  able  to  take  the 
offensive  against  adversaries  whom  it  was  his  mission  to  conquer, 
he  could  not  do  otherwise  than  take  position  on  the  same  bank 
with  themselves,  and  this  he  could  do  without  imprudence,  inas- 
much as  his  forces  were  equal  to  their  own.  In  this  position  he 
had  not  the  river  at  his  back,  but  on  one  of  his  flanks,  which 
was  protected  by  the  gun-boats ;  and  in  the  event  of  his  being 
beaten,  he  could  fall  back  as  far  as  he  desired  along  the  left  bank. 
The  ground  about  Pittsburg  Landing  was  easy  to  defend;  it 
consisted  of  undulations'  intersected  by  numerous  streams,  and 
almost  entirely  covered  with  woods,  partly  brushwood  and  partly 
tall  forest  trees.  It  is  bounded  by  two  watercourses.  Lick  Creek, 
to  the  south,  which  debouches  obliquely  into  the  Tennessee,  Owl 


534  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  A3IERICA. 

Creek,  to  the  north,  which,  after  taking  its  rise  near  the  former, 
separates  from  it  and  unites  with  a  third,  Snake  Creek,  running 
from  the  north-west,  and  forms  impassable  swamps  to  the  bank 
of  the  Tennessee,  into  which  it  empties  very  "near  to  Pittsburg 
Landing.  This  country  is  traversed  by  several  roads,  which  meet 
at  the  latter  point ;  that  of  Hamburg,  to  the  south,  runs  along  the 
left  bank  of  Lick  Creek ;  that  of  Crump's  Landing,  to  the  north, 
crosses  the  swamps  below  the  confluence  of  Owl  Creek  and  Snake 
Creek.  In  the  centre  a  third  road  leads  towards  the  north-west 
to  the  town  of  Purdy,  and  two  others  in  a  south-westerly  direction 
to  Corinth. 

The  two  streams  of  Owl  Creek  and  Lick  Creek,  separated  at 
their  mouths  by  a  space  of  little  more  than  four  kilometres, 
formed  an  excellent  protection  for  the  flanks  of  the  Federal 
army.  But  the  latter,  at  the  time  when  the  Confederates  were 
preparing  to  attack  it,  had  not  yet  learned  to  avail  itself  of  the 
natural  advantages  of  the  position  it  had  occupied  for  three  weeks. 
The  divisions  were  "scarcely  landed  when  they  were  posted  at 
hazard,  and  from  that  time  their  positions  had  never  been  altered. 
They  were  not  disposed  so  as  to  enable  them  to  support  each 
other  mutually,  and  there  were  intervals  between  them  through 
which  the  enemy  might  penetrate.  Sherman  formed  the  right 
with  three  of  his  brigades ;  he  occupied  one  of  the  Corinth  roads, 
that  of  Purdy,  and  a  prominent  point  adjoining  the  first  of  these 
roads,  where  stands  the  plain  wooden  chapel  known  by  the  name 
of  Shiloh.  This  little  church — or,  to  use  the  expression  more  gen- 
erally applied  by  the  sect  to  which  it  belonged,  this  meeting-house — 
resembling  those  primitive  religious  edifices  erected  in  the  New 
World  by  the  Puritan  colonists,  was  to  give  its  name  to  the  blood- 
iest battle  that  had  yet  been  fought  on  the  American  continent. 
At  a  considerable  distance  on  the  left,  and  a  little  in  the  rear  of 
Shiloh,  were  encamped  the  two  brigades  comprising  the  division 
of  Prentiss.  Still  farther  back,  and  entirely  isolated  on  the 
borders  of  Lick  Creek,  was  the  fourth  brigade  of  Sherman,  com- 
manded by  General  Stuart.  The  division  of  McClernand  was 
placed  one  kilometre  in  the  rear  of  Sherman  and  Prentiss,  or 
rather  fronting  the  large  interval  which  separated  them.  This 
broken  and  irregular  line  formed  a  kind  of  arc,  the  centre  of 


SHILOH.  535 

wliich  was  at  Pittsburg  Landing,  which  rested  at  the  It  ft  on  Lick 
Creek  near  its  mouth,  and  at  the  right  on  Owl  Creek,  and  which 
had  a  radius  of  from  four  to  six  kilometres..  Upon  a  second  line 
of  heights,  in  adyance  of  the  last  elevations  which  command 
Pittsburg  Landing,  were  posted  the  divisions  of  Hurlbut  on  the 
left  and  of  W.  H.  Wallace  on  the  right.  But  the  fault  of  these 
arrangements  was  a  small  matter  compared  with  the  neglect  of 
all  the  precautions  with  which  the  Federal  army  should  have 
surrounded  itself.  Not  a  shovelful  of  earth  had  been  thrown  up 
in  those  three  weeks  to  fortify  either  the  Federal  camps  or  the 
approaches  to  the  depot  of  Pittsburg  Landing.  The  tall  trees 
of  the  forest,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  army  was  established,  had 
not  even  been  cut  down  to  construct  abatis  and  gruard  against  an 
unforeseen  attack.  The  very  position  of  the  camps  exposed  them 
to  all  kind  of  surprises.  In  short,  the  surrounding  country  had 
not  been  reconnoitred.  The  cavalry,  still  greatly  inexperienced, 
instead  of  moving  about  and  constantly  searching  the  thick  forest 
which  separated  the  Federals  from  their  adversaries,  was  assem- 
bled near  the  river,  and  for  three  weeks  had  only  made  a  single 
reconnaissance,  of  no  consequence  whatever.  Each  general  would 
send  out  his  pickets  at  random  without  connecting  them  with 
those  of  his  neighbors;  and  the  divisions  of  Sherman  and  Prentiss, 
which  had  charge  of  the  matter,  being  the  newest  in  the  army, 
this  service  was  very  poorly  performed.  The  men  had  the  bad 
habit  of  firing  their  muskets  in  the  air  on  being  relieved,  so  that 
it  was  impossible  to  be  warned  in  time  of  the  approach  of  the 
enemy. 

Generals  and  soldiers  were  alike  novices.  Grant  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  handling  a  large  army.  He  was  ignorant  of  the  import- 
ance of  entrenchments,  of  which  he  was  afterwards  to  make  such 
great  use.  Sherman,  who  displayed  so  much  foresight  in  his  sub- 
sequent campaigns,  did  not  appear  to  possess  as  yet  that  vigilance 
which  became  one  of  his  prominent  military  qualities.  Notwith- 
standing the  reports  of  deserters  and  fugitive  negroes,  no  one  had 
been  able  to  form  an  idea  of  the  movements  by  which  seventy 
thousand  of  the  enemy  were  being  massed  at  Corinth.  Even 
Halleck,  in  his  central  office  at  St.  Louis,  was  indulging  in  the 
«!ame  illusions  as  his  subordinates,  and,  thinking  himself  able  to 


536  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

plan  at  leisure  the  offensive  campaign  of  which  the  arrival  of 
Buell  was  to  be  the  signal,  had  not  even  thought  proper  to  urge 
the  union  of  the  armies  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Tennessee. 

Before  being  placed  under  his  command,  Buell  had  already- 
proposed  to  him  to  march  upon  Savannah.  He  only  received 
orders  to  undertake  this  movement  on  the  12th  of  March.  But 
on  the  17th  his  progress  was  checked  at  Columbia  by  Duck 
River,  which  the  rains  had  greatly  swollen,  and  which  was  then 
more  than  thirteen  metres  in  depth.  It  was  found  necessary  to 
reconstruct  the  great  railway  bridge,  without  which  the  army 
could  not  have  been  victualled,  and  to  wait  until  the  31st  of 
March  for  the  completion  of  that  work  to  enable  him  to  resume 
his  march.  His  army  then  advanced  rapidly  towards  Savannah, 
where  it  arrived  on  the  5th  of  April.  In  the  mean  while,  Hal- 
leck  so  little  suspected  the  movements  of  the  enemy  that  he  sent 
an  order  to  Buell  to  make  a  diversion  to  the  north  to  occupy 
Waynesborough — an  order  which,  by  a  providential  chance,  did 
not  reach  him  in  time ;  while  Grant,  who  was  as  badly  informed 
as  his  superior,  wrote  on  the  4th  of  April  to  Nelson,  who  com- 
manded the  advance  guard  of  Buell's  army,  not  to  hurry,  because 
the  vessels  which  were  to  convey  him  to  Pittsburg  Landing  would 
not  be  ready  before  the  8th.  Fortunately,  Nelson  continued  his 
march  without  heeding  this  advice. 

The  Confederates  were  preparing  a  terrible  awakening  for  their 
imprudent  adversaries.  The  army  of  the  Mississippi,  reconstructed 
and  reorganized,  had  been  divided  into  four  corps  of  unequal  pro- 
portions. The  first  two,  under  Polk  and  Bragg,  each  consisting 
of  two  divisions,  numbered,  one,  nine  thousand,  the  other,  thir- 
teen thousand  five  hundred  men.  The  third,  under  Hardee,  com- 
posed of  part  of  Johnston's  old  army,  and  the  reserve  corps,  com- 
manded by  Breckenridge,  presented  each  an  effective  force  of  from 
six  to  seven  thousand  men,  and  were  divided  into  three  brigades 
each.  The  cavalry  formed  a  division  of  four  thousand  four 
hundred  horses.  Johnston  was  commander-in-chief,  Beauregard 
second  in  command.  Many  persons  thought  they  saw  in  the  one 
the  arm,  in  the  other  the  head,  of  that  army.  There  is  nothing 
to  justify  this  opinion.  Johnston,  before  deserting  his  flag,  had 
acquired  a  well-deserved  reputation  in   his   difficult  expedition 


SHILOH.  537 

agaiust  the  Mormons.  He  had  had  an  experience  which  Beaure- 
gard did  not  possess.  So  that  while  the  latter,  by  means  of  a 
glibness  of  speech,  dazzled  the  vulgar  with  the  glitter  of  a  renown 
which  his  military  career  was  far  from  sustaining,  professional 
men — that  is  to  say,  nearly  all  the  generals  of  the  army  of  the 
Mississippi — paid  much  greater  deference  to  the  moral  authority 
of  Sidney  Johnston. 

The  latter  had  at  first  determined  to  wait  before  attacking 
Grant  for  the  arrival  of  Van  Dorn,  who  was  expected  to  join  him 
on  the  5th  or  6th  of  April.  The  troops  which  that  general  was 
bringing  over  with  him,  increased  in  number  by  those  he  had 
picked  up  on  his  march  through  Arkansas,  would  have  swelled 
their  combined  forces  to  nearly  seventy  thousand  men.  But 
having  been  apprised  of  Buell's  march  towards  Savannah, 
Johnston  anticipated  the  date  which  had  been  fixed  for  his  of- 
fensive movement,  in  order  to  prevent  the  junction  of  the  two 
Federal  corps.  Therefore,  while  the  two  hostile  armies,  each 
about  forty  thousand  strong,  were  going  to  meet  near  Pittsburg 
Landing,  two  other  armies,  that  of  Van  Dorn  and  that  of  Buell, 
were  hastening;  on,  one  from  Arkansas  and  the  other  from  Nash- 
ville,  each  hoping  to  arrive  first  in  order  to  throw  a  decisive  weight 
into  the  scale. 

On  the  3d  of  April  news  reached  the  headquarters  at  Corinth 
that  Buell  had  left  Columbia.  It  was  important  to  anticipate  his 
arrival  at  all  risks,  and  all  the  marching  orders  were  issued  on  the 
same  day.  The  Confederate  army  was  to  be  put  in  motion  on  the 
following  day,  Friday,  preceded  by  the  cavalry,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing order :  the  third,  second,  and  first  corps,  and  lastly  the 
reserve.  It  carried  five  days'  rations,  with  as  much  ammunition 
as  possible.  The  scarcity  of  roads,  together  with  their  narrow- 
ness, could  not  but  stretch  out  the  columns,  which  were  obliged 
to  march  by  the  flank,  and  only  four  abreast.  But  when  they 
had  once  reached  the  space  between  Lick  Creek  and  Owl  Creek, 
where  they  knew  the  enemy  to  be  posted,  the  battalions  were  or- 
dered to  take  position  in  the  forest,  on  the  same  line  and  at  proper 
distance  from  each  other,  massed  in  double  column  on  the  centre, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  deploy  promptly  in  line  of  batth;.  According 
to  this  arrangement,  each  corps  thus  deployed  was  to  form  a  line 


538  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

which,  with  the  aid  of  cavahy,  should  occupy  all  the  space  com- 
prised between  the  two  streams.  An  interval  of  a  thousand 
metres  was  to  be  preserved  between  the  lines;  and  in  order  that 
they  might  present  a  front  nearly  equal,  the  second  corps  supplied 
the  third  with  a  few  brigades. 

Johnston  was  in  hopes  of  making  his  army  perform  the  great- 
est part  of  the  distance  of  from  twenty-six  to  twenty-eight  kil- 
ometres, which  separated  him  from  the  Federal  outposts,  during 
the  4th,  so  as  to  be  thus  able  to  fight  the  battle  on  Saturday,  the 
5th.  But  night  overtook  the  soldiers,  little  accustomed  to  march- 
ing, before  they  had  reached  the  points  determined  upon.  The 
next  morning  the  roads  were  soon  crowded ;  some  corps  remained 
eight  hours  under  arms  before  they  could  be  started,  and  all  that 
could  be  done  was  to  go  into  ■  bivouac  almost  in  sight  of  the 
enemy's  outposts  on  the  evening  of  the  5th. 

A  cavalry  reconnaissance  had  been  made  the  day  before  along 
the  whole  Federal  line,  and  towards  the  close  of  that  very  day 
some  patrols  of  Hardee's  corps  exchanged  shots  with  Sherman's 
outposts ;  but  they-  had  immediately  fallen  back,  and  the  Federal 
generals  attached  no  importance  to  such  trifling  skirmishes.  In 
the  mean  time,  an  army  of  forty  thousand  men,  lying  in  ambush 
within  reach  of  the  guns  of  its  camps,  was  waiting,  under  the 
cover  of  darkness  and  the  thick  foliage  of  the  virgin  forest,  for 
the  break  of  day,  which  was  to  be  the  signal  for  the  attack.  A 
warm  spring  night  gave  assurance  that  a  burning  sun  would  shine 
over  the  bloody  morrow;  but  there  were  no  camp-fires  to  enliven 
the  long  hours  of  that  night  for  the  soldiers  of  the  army  of  the 
Mississippi.  They  were  surrounded  by  a  line  of  outposts  care- 
fully stationed ;  the  sentinels  had  been  doubled,  and  they  were  in- 
structed to  allow  no  one  to  cross  their  line — an  indispensable  pre- 
caution, in  view  of  the  fact  that  a  single  deserter  might  put  the 
enemy  on  his  guard,  especially  in  an  army  which,  having  been 
levied  for  a  civil  war,  counted  more  than  one  resident  of  the  North 
in  its  ranks  who  had  been  enlisted  by  compulsion.  It  would 
have  required  a  keen  eye  to  discover  at  the  bottom  of  a  ravine  the 
only  fire  which  had  been  kindled  in  that  camp,  where  every  one 
was  preparing  in  silence,  and  without  light,  for  the  conflict  of  the 
next  day.     Its  flickering  flame  projected  on  the  surrounding  trees 


SHILOR.  539 

the  shadows  of  a  few  officers  wraijped  up  in  cavalry  cloaks. 
These  were  the  leaders  of  the  Confederate  array,  assembled  to  dis- 
cuss the  chances  of  the  battle  which  was  to  restore  to  them  the 
whole  valley  of  the  Mississippi; — Johnston,  who  seemed  already 
to  bear  upon  his  gloomy  brow  the  presentiment  of  his  approachiuo- 
death ;  Beauregard,  full  of  ardor  and  of  confidence,  which  he  was 
endeavoring  to  impart  to  the  others  ;  Hardee,  the  practiced  officer, 
whose  European  military  education  invested  him  with  a  peculiar 
authority ;  Braxton  Bragg,  as  stiff,  and  even  haughty,  towards  his 
equals  as  he  was  stern  to  his  inferiors ;  Bishop  Polk,  who  only  re- 
membered the  early  yeare  of  his  youth  passed  at  the  West  Point 
Academy ;  finally,  Breckenridge,  the  politician,  very  lately  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States,  an  improvised  general,  who  was 
learning  his  profession  in  this  great  and  rough  school.  Their  de- 
liberations Avere  long.  At  last  the  soldiers,  who  were  watching 
them  at  a  distance,  saw  them  separate  and  each  direct  his  steps 
towards  his  own  head-quarters.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  Beauregard, 
"  to-morrow  we  shall  sleep  in  the  enemy's  camps."  The  plan  de- 
termined upon  between  the  leaders  was  explained  by  each  of  them 
to  all  his  subordinates,  for  it  was  easy  to  foresee  that  in  a  battle 
fought  in  the  extensive  forest  it  would  be  impossible  to  direct  the 
movements  of  troops  from  a  central  point.  This  plan  was  simple ; 
its  object  was  to  attack  the  enemy  constantly  by  the  right,  so  as  to 
dislodge  him  from  Pittsburg  Landing  and  drive  him  into  the 
angle  comprised  between  the  Tennessee  and  the  marshes  of  Snake 
Creek. 

On  Sunday,  the  6th,  Hardee  started  before  break  of  day.  The 
first  Confederate  line,  to  avoid  the  deep  ravines  which  run  into 
Lick  Creek  and  Owl  Creek  on  the  right  and  left  of  the  Corinth 
roads,  followed  the  jjlateau  upon  which  these  roads  run,  and  which 
separates  the  valleys  of  those  two  streams,  and  over  which  those 
roads  pass.  It  was  precisely  at  this  central  point  that  the  Federal 
line  was  left  open  between  the  left  of  Sherman,  which  did  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  church  of  Shiloh,  and  the  right  of  Prentiss, 
whose  front  on  that  day  was  formed  by  a  single  brigade.  Colonel 
Peabody,  M'ho  commanded  it,  had  sent  five  companies  to  recon- 
noitre the  ground  beyond  Shiloh,  where  some  vague  indications 
had  caused  him  to  suspect  a  hidden  danger.     When  day  was  be- 


640  THE  CIVIL   WAR  11^   AMERICA. 

ginning  to  break,  this  reconnoitring  party  was  saluted,  not  by 
isolated  discharges  of  musketry  from  a  few  skirmishers,  but  by  a 
well-sustained  fire  of  two  ranks ;  these  were  the  Confederate  bat- 
talions, which,  deployed  under  shelter  of  the  woods,  were  now  ad- 
vancing in  a  compact  line,  despite  the  obstacles  of  the  forest,  and 
were  fully  determined  to  drive  everything  they  met  before  them. 
An  instant  after  the  battle  commences ,  in  the  very  camp  of  Pea- 
body's  brigade ;  for  the  Federals,  accustomed  to  hear  every  morn- 
ing the  pickets  fire  their  muskets  in  the  air,  have  paid  no  attention 
to  the  discharges  of  musketry,  which  should  have  been  a  warning 
to  them.  They  cannot  even  offer  any  resistance ;  their  ranks  are 
broken  before  they  are  formed,  and  the  camps  are  strewn  with  the 
killed  and  wounded,  whom  the  balls  of  the  enemy  have  struck  down 
before  they  had  time  to  seize  their  arms.  The  victorious  Confed- 
erates chase  the  remnants  of  Peabody's  brigade,  and  drive  them 
vigorously  before  them.  The  Federals  rally  at  last  upon  the 
second  brigade,  posted  at  some  distance  in  the  rear,  and  hastening 
to  their  assistance. 

The  surprise  of  the  Federals  was  complete  and  unquestionable, 
and  their  commanders  sought  in  vain  to  excuse  themselves.  Their 
apologists  vainly  tried  to  make  it  appear  that  the  Federals  were 
aware  of  the  movements  of  the  enemy,  and  had  prepared  them- 
selves to  receive  him.  If  they  could  have  believed  that  an  army 
of  forty  thousand  men  was  near  enough  to  attack  them,  they 
would  not  have  contented  themselves  with  sending  a  few  insig- 
nificant reconnoitring  parties  some  hundreds  of  metres  only  from 
their  camps ;  they  would  not  have  allowed  their  soldiers  to  lie 
down  in  those  camps  as  quietly  as  if  they  had  been  near  St.  Louis. 
Grant  himself  would  have  hurried  to  the  centre  of  his  army,  in- 
stead of  remaining  at  his  headquarters  in  Savannah.  He  would 
have  hastened  the  march  of  Buell's  heads  of  column,  which  had 
just  reached  that  town.  He  would  have  ordered  Lewis  Wallace 
to  Pittsburg  Landing,  instead  of  leaving  him  with  seven  thousand 
men  at  Crump's  Landing,  separated  by  a  distance  of  nearly  twelve 
kilometres  from  the  rest  of  the  army.  In  short,  if  he  had  fore- 
seen the  danger  which  threatened  him,  the  forces  he  could  have 
arrayed  against  the  forty  thousand  Confederates  massed  between 


SHILOH.  541 

Owl  Creek  and  Lick  Creek  would  not  have  thus  been  reduced  to 
the  figure  of  thirty-three  thousand  men. 

While  the  right  wing  of  Hardee  was  achieving  this  first  suc- 
cess, his  left  centre  encountered  the  extremity  of  Sherman's  line. 
The  latter  had  left  Stuart's  brigade  at  the  extreme  left,  near 
Lick  Creek,  which  he  had  posted  there  when  he  was  guarding 
Pittsburg  Landing  alone.  He  had  three  left:  the  one  on  the 
right  was  guarding  the  bridge  over  Owl  Creek,  the  other  two 
were  posted  on  each  side  of  Shiloh  church  and  across  the  Corinth 
road.  The  brigade  posted  on  the  right*  of  that  road,  and,  conse- 
quently, in  the  centre  of  the  division,  occupied  a  commanding 
position  over  a  ravine  which  covered  its  front.  The  other  had 
nothing  before  it  but  the  plateau  upon  which  the  Confederates 
were  debouching.  It  was  upon  this  brigade  that  their  first  effort 
was  directed.  Warned  by  the  firing  of  his  outposts,  Sherman  had 
time  to  place  his  division  under  arms,  and  to  send  a  message  to 
McClernand,  who  was  encamped  in  his  rear,  requesting  him  to 
fill  up,  without  delay,  the  gap  which  separated  him  from  Prentiss. 
His  soldiers,  encouraged  by  his  example,  resisted  the  first  shock. 
It  is  true  that  a  few  regiments  on  his  extreme  left,  near  a  battery 
which  covered  his  flank,  were  scattered,  but  a  reinforcement  sent 
by  McClernand  arrived  in  time  to  take  their  place. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  attack  of  the  Confederates  redoubles  in 
vigor.  Bragg,  who  forms  their  second  line  with  five  brigades, 
has  brought  them  successively  into  action,  where  he  sees  that 
Hardee  needs  support.  Three  of  these  brigades,  composing  the 
division  of  Ruggles,  have  crossed  the  ravine  which  covers  Sher- 
man's front,  and  press  upon  the  whole  of  his  line.  On  the  left. 
Withers,  with  the  remainder  of  the  second  corps,  resumes  the 
fight  against  the  remnants  of  the  two  brigades  of  Prentiss,  and 
thus  enables  Hardee  to  re-form  his  troops.  The  latter  takes  ad- 
vantage of  this  to  penetrate  into  the  interval  which  has  remained 
open  between  the  two  divisions  of  the  first  Federal  line,  and 
separate  them  irreparably.  This  movement  is  decisive.  The 
Confederates  reach  the  positions  occupied  by  McClernand  in  the 
rear  of  this  interval.  While  some  charge  this  new  adversary  in 
front,  others  rush,  on  the  left,  upon  Sherman,  striking  him  on  the 
flank  and  taking;  him  almost  in  the  rear.     The  latter  sees  his 


542  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

brigade  on  the  left,  which  is  the  most  exposed,  give  way  under 
such  pressure.  It  disperses  at  last,  leaving  many  guns  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.  But  the  others,  sustained  by  the  heroic  con- 
duct of  their  leader,  hold  their  ground ;  and  for  another  hour, 
Sherman,  surrounded  almost  on  every  side,  gallantly  defends  the 
position  of  Shiloh,  the  importance  of  which  he  thoroughly  appre- 
ciates. But  towards  ten  o'clock  he  is  obliged  to  abandon  it,  in 
consequence  of  the  repeated  assaults  of  Hardee.  He  tries  in  vain 
to  make  a  stand  behind  the  first  screen  of  trees,  where  his  deci- 
mated soldiers  again  lose  several  guns.  At  last  he  succeeds  in 
occupying  a  good  position  on  the  left  of  McClernand,  who  is  be- 
ginning to  be  sorely  pressed  in  his  turn. 

Sherman's  division  was  considerably  reduced.  He  had  event- 
ually lost  important  positions  and  left  part  of  his  artillery  in  the 
hands  of  the  assailants ;  but  through  his  sagacity  and  courage  he  had 
gained  time — precious  time — which  might  save  the  Federals  from 
an  irrejDarable  disaster.  His  truly  warlike  instinct  made  him  dis- 
cover at  a  glance  the  points  most  easy  to  defend,  and  his  indom- 
itable courage  rallied  once  more  the  dismayed  soldiers,  who  would 
no  longer  listen  to  the  voice  of  any  other  leader.  Those  who 
knew  this  officer  best,  generally  so  chary  of  his  words  and  sharp 
in  discussion,  looked  upon  him  as  a  new  man.  Danger  had  re- 
vealed the  qualities  of  the  great  general,  quick  in  his  decisions, 
clear  in  his  orders,  imparting  to  all,  by  a  word,  a  gesture,  or  a 
look,  the  ardor  which  fired  his  own  breast.  In  the  midst  of  this 
hand-to-hand  conflict,  the  most  terrible  he  said  himself  to  the 
author  that  he  has  witnessed  during  his  whole  career,  he  soon  be- 
came the  soul  of  resistance.  Wherever  he  passed  along,  his  tall 
form  overshadowing  all  disordered  groups,  the  ranks  were  re- 
formed and  the  fighting  was  renewed.  McClernand  himself,  who, 
a  few  days  before,  had  quarrelled  with  him  regarding  the  com- 
mand of  the  army  during  Grant's  absence,  felt  the  power  of  his 
influence  at  this  trying  moment,  and  deferentially  followed  all  the 
counsels  of  his  colleague. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  battle  was  extending  and  becoming  fiercer. 
On  the  part  of  the  Confederates,  nearly  the  whole  of  their  army 
was  engaged.  A  portion  of  Polk's  corps  which  had  deployed  to 
the  left  supported  Ruggles  and  Hardee  in  their  attack  against 


SHILOH.  543 

Sherman  and  McClernand.  Brecken ridge's  reserves,  extending 
on  the  right  along  Lick  Creek,  finally  met  the  brigade  of  Stuart, 
the  4th  of  Sherman's  division,  which  had  not  yet  participated  in 
the  fight,  and  which  for  a  brief  period  made  a  strenuous  resist- 
ance. On  the  part  of  the  Federals,  the  two  divisions  of  W.  H. 
Wallace  and  Hurlbut,  which  formed  a  kind  of  second  line,  be- 
came engaged  in  their  turn.  The  first  of  these  two  generals  had 
sent  the  brigade  of  McArthur  to  Stuart's  aasistance,  but  it  had 
not  reached  this  general,  and,  while  looking  for  him,  it  had  met 
the  enemy's  brigade  of  Withers,  near  the  positions  where  Prentiss 
was  endeavoring  to  rally  the  remnant  of  his  troops.  It  was 
joined  by  Hurlbut's  division,  before  which  the  Confederates  halted 
a  while.  Unfortunately  for  him,  Prentiss  persisted  in  defending 
a  clearing  situated  in  front  of  Stuart's  and  Hurlbut's  line,  and 
he  found  himself  at  last  surrounded  by  the  constantly  advancing 
tide  of  the  triumphant  enemy.  Assailed  on  all  sides,  without 
hope  of  assistance,  he  was  made  prisoner  with  three  regiments, 
like  himself  the  victims  of  their  determination  and  tenacity. 

Encouraged  by  this  new  success,  the  Confederates  make  one 
great  effort  on  their  right  to  secure  the  victory ;  for  it  is  on  this 
side  that  they  desire  to  strike  the  decisive  blow,  and  their  left 
has,  according  to  their  plan,  gained  too  much  ground.  Sidney 
Johnston  at  the  point  of  greatest  danger  directs  in  person  the 
concentration  of  all  his  forces  upon  this  wing,  and  carries  his  men 
along  by  his  example.  At  this  moment  he  falls  mortally  wounded 
by  the  bursting  of  a  schrapnell ;  but  the  martial  ardor  which  he 
has  communicated  to  his  soldiers  survives  him.  Hurlbut,  who 
occupies  alone  the  left  centre  of  the  Federals  since  Prentiss's 
division  has  been  captured  or  dispersed,  receives  their  violent 
shock,  and  is  unable  to  resist  it.  The  brigade  of  Stuart  is  like- 
wise driven  back  on  the  extreme  left.  W.  H.  Wallace  had  hast- 
ened in  time  with  his  three  brigades  to  fill  up  the  space  which 
separated  those  two  generals.  He  brings  with  him  soldiers 
proved  in  the  Donelson  campaign,  who  sustain  the  assault  of  the 
enemy  without  flinching.  But  isolated  in  their  turn,  they  are 
compelled  to  take  a  new  position,  under  a  cross-fire  which  deci- 
mates them  and  causes  the  loss  of  their  general.  The  shock  given 
to  the  line  is  communicated  from  left  to  right.     It  is  now  three 


544  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

o'clock.  McClernand's  left,  somewhat  exposed  by  the  disorderly 
retreat  of  Hurlbut,  is  again  violently  attacked,  and  the  assault  of 
the  Confederates,  spreading  more  and  more,  once  more  strikes 
Sherman's  division,  already  so  terribly  reduced  by  seven  hours 
of  incessant  fighting.  The  right  wing  of  the  Federals  is  again 
driven  in ;  but  Sherman  and  McClernand,  who  are  still  united, 
yield  their  ground  but  slowly,  and  they  stop  upon  two  small  hills 
separated  by  a  small  ravine,  which  cover  the  road  from  Crump's 
Landing  as  well  as  the  bridge  across  the  Snake  Creek  marshes. 
It  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  keep  this  passage  open;  for 
it  is  through  this  that  Lewis  Wallace's  division,  so  impatiently 
looked  for  by  the  Federal  commanders,  must  make  its  appearance. 

While  the  Confederates  are  thus  once  more  directing  their 
efforts  upon  the  Federal  right,  which,  after  the  first  shock,  finally 
keeps  them  in  check,  they  allow  the  left  one  moment's  respite. 
The  latter,  although  considerably  disorganized,  succeeds  never- 
theless in  re-forming  along  the  last  chain  of  hills,  w^hich  still 
alone  protects  the  wharves  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  At  this  critical 
moment  they  receive  valuable  assistance  from  two  gunboats, 
whose  large  shells,  fired  against  the  flank  and  the  rear  of  the 
Confederate  columns,  create  astonishment  and  confusion  in  their 
ranks. 

The  strength  of  both  parties  is  becoming  exhausted,  and  gen- 
eral disorder  is  beginning  to  appear.  The  Confederates  have  lost 
their  leader  and  several  other  generals.  The  more  impetuous 
their  first  attacks,  the  more  dearly  has  their  success  been  bought. 
The  weakness  of  some  of  the  troops  has  been  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  courage  of  the  rest.  The  number  of  stragglers  and 
plunderers  increases  the  more  rapidly  that  the  camps  captured 
from  the  Federals  offer  them  a  rich  prize.  The  Confederates, 
improvident,  like  all  young  soldiers,  have  consumed  their  five 
days'  rations  in  forty-eight  hours ;  they  have  moreover  left  their 
knapsacks  behind  them  before  going  into  battle,  and  they  cannot 
resist  the  sight  of  the  provisions  abandoned  by  their  adversaries. 
Finally,  the  divisions  brought  into  action,  regiment  by  regiment, 
along  a  front  of  considerable  extent,  are  so  disconnected  that  no 
bond  exists  between  their  different  parts,  and  each  fraction  fights 
on  its  own  account  without  any  common  direction. 


SHILOH.  545 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  situation  of  the  Federals  is  alarm- 
ing in  the  extreme.  They  have  lost  all  their  positions  and  four 
kilometres  of  ground.  The  enemy  is  master  of  their  camps,  even 
of  those  occupied  by  the  second  line.  Five  or  six  thousand  men 
have  been  killed  or  wounded  and  three  thousand  taken  prisoners. 
Two  divisions  are  completely  disorganized,  the  other  three  greatly 
reduced,  and  about  thirty  pieces  of  artilleiy  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.  Only  one  line  remains  to  be  defended,  and 
in  its  immediate  vicinity,  along  the  banks  of  the  river,  a  frantic 
crowd  of  fugitives  is  pressing,  whose  appearance  alone  would  be 
enough  to  disconcert  much  better  trained  soldiers  than  those  of 
Grant.  Their  number  is  rapidly  increasing  as  the  sound  of  the 
enemy's  cannon  approaches  the  wharves,  until  it  reaches  the  figure 
of  seven  or  eight  thousand  men.  The  hours  pass  by  without  any 
sign  of  Lewis  Wallace's  division  on  the  battle-field,  which  should 
make  its  appearance  by  way  of  the  Crump's  Landing  road.  This 
road,  which  Sherman  is  defending  with  great  pertinacity,  is  the 
only  one  remaining  open  in  case  of  a  retreat,  which  has  become 
almost  inevitable,  for  behind  all  the  other  Federal  positions  are 
the  impassable  swamps  of  Snake  Creek,  and  the  army  cannot  go 
back  another  step  without  falling  into  them.  Wallace,  apprised 
of  the  situation  by  his  commander,  has  been  under  arms  since 
morning.  The  instructions  of  Grant,  however,  who  feared  an 
attack  on  that  side,  have  detained  him  until  half-past  eleven  at 
Crump's  Landing.  At  last  he  is  ordered  to  cross  Snake  Creek  to 
take  position  on  the  right  of  the  Federal  line,  and  his  soldiers  march 
forward  with  alacrity,  stimulated  by  the  sound  of  cannon,  which 
increases  as  they  advance.  But  Grant's  despatch  did  not  indicate 
the  road  he  was  to  follow,  nor  did  it  inform  him  that,  the  Federal 
right  having  been  repulsed,  he  had  to  look  for  it  near  the  mouth 
of  Snake  Creek.  He  therefore  followed  the  road  leading  to  the 
church  of  Shiloh,  which  would  have  taken  him  into  the  midst  of 
the  enemy's  battalions.  It  was  only  when  he  came  near  the  stream 
that  he  found  out  his  mistake  and  the  danger  into  which  he  was 
running.  He  was  placed  on  the  right  road  by  two  of  Grant's 
aides-de-camp.  Captain  Rawlins,  the  faithful  companion  of  the 
latter  throughout  the  war,  and  McPherson,  the  young  and  bril- 
liant officer,  who,  after  attaining  the  highest  rank,  perished  in  the 

Vol.  I.— 35 


546  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

very  hour  of  triumph,  and  whose  untimely  end  is  still  deplored 
by  the  American  army.  Much  precious  time  was  wasted  by  these 
countermarcheSi  The  first  division  of  Buell,  commanded  by 
Nelson,  should  also  be  already  on  the  field  of  battle,  for  it  had 
reached  Savannah  the  evening  before.  Grant,  on  leaving  his 
headquarters  in  the  morning,  had  ordered  it  to  make  all  possible 
haste  to  join  him.  But  Buell,  not  believing  that  any  serious 
engagement  was  taking  place,  detained  it  until  one  o'clock  to  wait 
for  the  vessels  which  were  to  transport  it.  Since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  battle  Nelson  has  been  listening  anxiously  to  the 
sound  of  cannon,  which  is  becoming  more  and  more  distinct ;  he 
was  soon  convinced  that  the  enemy  was  gaining  ground,  and  he 
finally  obtained  permission  to  march  forward  by  the  right  bank 
of  the  river,  until  he  found  himself  in  front  of  Pittsburg  Land- 
ing. He  started  at  once,  leaving  behind  him  his  artillery,  which 
cannot  follow  him  along  the  miry  roads  through  which  he  pushas 
his  columns.  But  despite  his  ardor,  it  will  take  him  yet  many 
hours  before  he  can  reach  the  scene  of  conflict. 

In  the  mean  time,  Grant,  who  had  hastened  by  ten  o'clock  into 
the  hottest  of  the  action,  is  not  discouraged.  He  has  passed  along 
his  lines  during  the  whole  day,  trying  to  preserve  some  connec- 
tion between  the  movements  of  his  divisions  in  the  midst  of  that 
wooded  country,  and  has  been  able  to  appreciate  how  dearly  the 
enemy  has  paid  for  his  success.  He  knows  that  Nelson  is  approach- 
ing, that  Buell's  army  will  soon  follow  him,  that  the  gun-boats  com- 
mand the  shores  of  the  river ;  and  relying  upon  his  ability  to  hold 
out  till  night,  he  already  issues  orders  for  the  offensive  movement 
of  the  following  day.  His  line,  naturally  contracted  in  propor- 
tion to  the  extent  of  ground  lost,  is  easier  to  defend.  On  the 
right  the  two  small  brigades  which  Sherman  has  kept  about  him 
cover  the  Crump's  Landing  road ;  on  his  left  extend  the  divisions 
of  McClernand  and  Hurlbut,  yet  compact,  though  much  weak- 
ened. The  divisions  of  Prentiss  and  W.  H.  Wallace  have  been 
disorganized,  but  their  remnants  are  again  forming  around  the 
others.  While  along  the  borders  of  the  river  a  portion  of  the 
fugitives  present  the  sad  spectacle  of  a  rabble  crazy  with  fright, 
the  rest  are  spontaneously  forming  again  into  regiments  and  provis- 
ional brigades  under  the  very  fire  of  the  enemy.     Scattered  among 


SHILOH.  547 

the  woods,  constantly  separated  from  their  leaders,  the  soldiers 
who  desire  to  continue  the  fight — and  these  constitute  the  immense 
majority — meet  again  within  the  narrow  space  in  which  the  army 
has  been  contracted,  and  hasten  to  fill  the  intervals  of  the  line 
already  engaged.  This  line,  however,  is  too  short  to  cover  all 
the  space  comprised  between  the  Crump's  Landing  road  and  the 
banks  of  the  Tennessee.  Two  fortunate  circumstances  enable 
Grant  to  prolong  this  line  on  the  left,  along  the  last  hills  which 
terminate  above  the  river,  and  to  raise  a  formidable  obstacle  upon 
that  point,  the  loss  of  which  would  involve  that  of  his  whole 
army.  On  one  hand,  a  deep  ravine  filled  with  thick  brushwood 
covers  the  whole  front  of  those  hills  on  the  side  where  the  right 
of  the  Confederates,  which,  according  to  their  plan,  always  ad- 
vances first,  is  to  approach ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  an  unex- 
pected piece  of  good  fortune  has  caused  the  park  of  siege  artillery 
recently  landed  to  be  placed  in  that  position,  when  nobody  sup- 
posed that  a  battle  would  have  to  be  fought  so  near  the  dt^pots 
of  the  army.  The  heavy  guns  of  which  it  was  composed  were 
entrusted  to  a  simple  guard  incapable  of  serving  them ;  but  an 
officer  of  Grant's  staff,  Colonel  Webster,  conceives  the  happy  idea 
of  ha.stily  collecting  together  all  the  cannoneers  he  can  find  who 
have  lost  their  guns,  and  puts  them  in  charge  of  this  new  park  of 
artillery,  which  he  places  in  battery  together  with  a  few  field-pieces 
that  have  escaped  the  disaster.  The  fate  of  the  day  depends  upon 
the  preservation  of  these  heights,  whence  the  enemy  could  have 
commanded  Pittsburg  Landing.  Webster  has  not  acted  one 
moment  too  soon,  for  the  Confederates  are  about  to  make  a  des- 
perate effort  against  the  positions  he  defends. 

But  the  death  of  Johnston  has  already  produced  its  effect  among 
them.  Their  three  lines  are  confused  into  one,  and  in  this  amal- 
gamation of  all  the  corps  their  several  chiefs  command,  each  on 
his  own  responsibility,  the  troops  they  meet,  without  any  concert 
of  action.  They  have  divided  the  field  of  battle  among  them- 
selves, Polk  taking  the  left,  Hardee  the  centre,  and  Bragg  the 
right ;  but  this  improvised  arrangement  cannot  remedy  the  dis- 
order which  has  been  introduced  into  their  ranks.  Bragg,  who 
has  found  at  the  right  wing  three  generals  each  acting  according 
to  his  own  inspirations,  can  only  unite  two  brigades  from  his  own 


548  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

corps,  commanded  respectively  by  Chalmers  and  Jackson,  with 
which  to  attack  the  great  Federal  battery.  At  the  sound  of  the 
well-known  voice  of  their  chief  these  troops  bravely  march  up  to 
the  assault.  They  are  received  by  a  terrible  fire  from  the  whole 
Federal  battery,  which  is  supported  by  the  gun-boats  stationed  at 
the  mouth  of  Lick  Creek.  Nevertheless,  at  the  sight  of  the 
enemy's  battalions  advancing  in  good  order,  the  soldiers  that  have 
been  grouped  together  in  haste  to  give  an  air  of  support  to  Web- 
ster's battery  become  frightened  and  scatter.  It  is  about  to  be 
carried,  "when  a  new  body  of  troops,  deploying  in  the  rear  of  the 
guns  with  as  much  regularity  as  if  they  were  on  parade-ground, 
receives  the  Confederates  with  a  fire  that  drives  them  back  in  dis- 
order into  the  ravine.  This  was  the  brigade  of  Ammen,  belong- 
ing to  Nelson's  division,  that  rushed  forward  so  opportunely. 
Having  succeeded,  by  dint  of  perseverance,  in  making  his  way 
through  swamps  almost  impassable,  Nelson  had  arrived  with  his 
infantry  in  front  of  Pittsburg  Landing,  and  had  found  steamers, 
which  immediately  conveyed  his  soldiers  from  one  side  of  the 
river  to  the  other.  Not  disturbed  by  seeing  the  frightened  mass 
that  was  crowding  around  the  wharves,  he  had  hastened  to  where 
the  noise  of  battle  called  them.  It  was  near  sunset,  there  being 
just  enough  daylight  left  to  enable  the  Confederates  to  try  a  last 
attack.  It  might  have  proved  more  successful  than  the  previous 
one  if  it  had  been  made  along  the  whole  line  at  once.  Many  of 
the  generals,  Bragg  among  the  rest,  were  preparing  for  it,  when 
an  order  from  Beauregard,  who  had  assumed  command,  caused  a 
suspension  of  the  battle.  This  was  the  debut  of  the  new  general- 
in-chief.  Deceived  by  reports  that  made  him  believe  Buell's  army 
to  be  still  far  away,  more  impressed  by  the  disorganization  of  his 
own  army,  which  he  had  under  his  eyes,  than  of  that  of  the 
enemy,  which  he  should  have  been  able  to  discover,  he  postponed 
the  continuation  of  the  battle  to  the  next  day,  which,  as  he 
thought,  was  to  witness  the  complete  destruction  of  Grant's  army. 
That  next  day  had  some  terrible  surprises  and  bitter  deceptions 
in  store  for  him. 

In  going  into  bivouac  for  the  night,  no  order  was  observed  on 
tlie  part  of  the  Confederates.  Each  brigade  or  regiment  selected 
Its  position  at  its  own  will ;  some  corps  retired  to  a  great  distance 


SHILOH.  549 

from  the  Federal  lines;  others,  on  the  contrary,  remained  within 
musket-shot  of  the  enemy ;  but  on  finding  themselves  isolated, 
they  also  removed  farther  off,  so  that  during  the  night  the  Con- 
federates abandoned  many  of  the  positions  they  had  conquered 
with  so  much  trouble  the  day  before.  In  the  rear  of  their  lines 
were  the  Federal  camps,  filled  with  a  greedy  multitude  of  strag- 
glers and  plunderers,  who  loaded  themselves  with  spoils  under 
cover  of  the  darkness.  More  than  ten  thousand  wounded  were 
lying  on  the  field  of  battle.  They  probably  found  some  mitiga- 
tion to  their  sufferings  in  the  copious  rain  which  was  sent  to  re- 
fresh them,  and  which,  extinguishing  the  fires  in  the  brushwood, 
the  inevitable  consequence  of  a  battle,  preserved  them  at  least 
from  a  frightful  death.  This  storm,  however,  contributed  still 
more  to  the  prostration  of  the  soldiers,  deprived  as  they  were  of 
their  knapsacks,  their  provisions,  and  their  overcoats.  During 
the  entire  night  the  two  Federal  gun-boats  fired  shells  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  Confederate  camps  every  ten  minutes.  These  enor- 
mous projectiles,  bursting  among  the  trees  and  breaking  the 
branches  with  a  dismal  noise,  did  scarcely  any  harm ;  but  they 
caused  considerable  uneasiness  to  the  troops,  who  were  so  greatly 
in  need  of  rest.  Those  explosions,  regular  as  the  tolling  of  a 
funeral-bell,  alone  interrupted  the  silence,  which,  with  nightfall, 
had  succeeded  the  tumult  of  the  day. 

Grant's  army  was  beaten,  but  not  destroyed ;  and  its  stubborn 
resistance  during  the  long  struggle  it  had  sustained  with  only 
thirty-three  thousand  men  assured  the  large  reinforcements  that 
had  just  been  added  to  it  an  easy  victory  for  the  next  day  over 
an  exhausted  foe.  L.  Wallace  had  arrived  about  sunset  with 
seven  thousand  men,  all  fresh  troops.  Buell,  on  his  side,  before 
repairing  in  person  to  Pittsburg  Landing,  where  he  was  present 
with  Grant  in  all  the  latter  part  of  the  battle,  had  sent  or- 
ders from  Savannah  to  all  his  divisions  to  quicken  their  steps. 
Transports  were  in  readiness,  on  board  of  which  those  reinforce- 
ments embarked  the  same  evening,  and  the  greater  portion  of  them 
disembarked  at  Pittsburg  Landing  during  the  night,  with  the 
artillery  of  Nelson,  whose  last  brigade  was  landing  at  the  same 
time  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tennessee. 

Before  sunrise  the  divisions   of  Nelson  and  Crittenden,  de- 


550  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ploj^ed  one  in  rear  of  the  other,  and  led  by  Buell  in  person,  had 
passed  as  a  front  line  on  the  left.  They  occupied,  without  strik- 
ing a  blow,  part  of  the  positions  which  had  been  lost  the  evening 
before,  and  subsequently  abandoned  by  the  Confederates.  The 
third  division  of  this  army,  under  General  McCook,  at  last  arrived 
at  Pittsburg  Landing.  As  soon  as  it  was  sufficiently  light  to 
attack  the  enemy  Crittenden  was  to  take  position  on  Nelson's 
right.  McCook,  who  followed  them  with  his  first  brigade,  Rous- 
seau's, the  only  one  yet  landed,  was  ordered  to  make  a  similar 
movement  immediately  after.  He  would  thus  connect  Buell's 
line  with  L.  Wallace's  division,  which  was  to  extend  the  extreme 
Federal  right  as  far  as  the  borders  of  Snake  Creek.  Three  regu- 
lar batteries  of  artillery  were  ready  to  support  this  movement. 
From  half-past  five  in  the  morning  the  army  of  the  Ohio  Avas 
advancing  slowly  through  the  woods,  which  were  partially  lighted 
by  the  first  faint  glimmer  of  a  rainy  morning.  The  traces  of  the 
previous  day's  struggle  were  visible  everywhere — the  dead  and 
the  wounded  of  both  parties  lying  in  confused  heaps,  carcasses  of 
horses,  dismounted  cannon  and  broken  weapons,  accoutrements 
scattered  over  the  ground,  trunks  of  trees  blackened  by  fire  or 
torn  by  cannon  balls.  The  condition  of  the  soil,  softened  by  the 
rain,  and  the  fear  of  breaking  their  line,  delayed  the  progress  of 
the  Federals. 

The  Confederates,  on  their  side,  were  in  no  hurry  to  renew  the 
fight.  The  commanders,  taking  no  thought  for  that  rest  they  had 
so  well  deserved,  had  spent  the  night  in  looking  up  the  scattered 
fragments  of  their  respective  commands,  and  in  endeavors  to  re- 
store order  in  their  lines.  They  had  not  been  entirely  successful ; 
but  the  return  of  day  enabled  them  to  form  again  to  some  extent, 
and  to  prepare  for  a  new  attack,  which  to  them  was  an  impera- 
tive necessity.  Being  in  want  of  everything,  they  could  not  afford 
to  remain  inactive  a  single  day.  They  believed,  moreover,  that 
they  were  certain  of  their  prey,  and  counted  upon  gathering, 
by  an  easy  success,  all  the  fruits  of  the  bloody  struggle  of  the 
day  before.  Were  they  not,  in  fact,  lying  in  tlie  camps  of  the 
enemy,  as  their  new  commander  had  promised  them  before  the 
battle  ? 

Bragg  had  gone,  to  the  left  to  get  his  corps  together,  the  greater 


SHILOH.  551 

part  of  which  was  on  that  side.  Polk  and  Hardee  commandcid 
the  centre  upon  the  two  roads  from  Corinth,  Breckenridge  the 
right  on  the  Hamburg  road.  But  Buell's  movement  did  not  allow 
them  time  to  take  the  offensive.  At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning 
Nelson  met  them  on  the  plateaux  which  separate  the  valley  of 
Lick  Creek  from  that  of  Owl  Creek.  This  unlooked-for  attack, 
together  with  the  regularity  in  the  fire  of  the  new  assailants,  left 
no  doubt  in  Beauregard's  mind  as  to  their  character.  He  under- 
stood at  once  that  he  had  before  him  another  army  than  that  he 
had  beaten  the  day  before.  How  greatly  must  he  then  have  re- 
gretted both  his  delay  of  two  days  in  leaving  Corinth,  and  his 
hesitancy  to  strike  on  the  evening  of  the  6th  a  last  blow  which 
might  have  proved  decisive ! 

In  the  mean  while,  the  Confederates,  warned  by  their  skirmish- 
ers, quickly  form  in  line,  and  sustain  with  the  assurance  of  an 
army  yet  victorious  the  first  shock  of  Nelson's  attack.  The  lat- 
ter, being  alone  in  line,  finds  himself  suddenly  checked,  and  waits 
before  renewing  the  charge  for  Crittenden  and  McCook,  who  are 
close  at  hand,  to  deploy  on  his  right.  "While  this  movement  is 
being  made,  the  Confederates  have  recovered  from  their  first  sur- 
prise and  reconstructed  their  lines.  In  accordance  with  their  cus- 
tomary tactics,  they  are  preparing  to  resume  the  offensive  by  a 
sudden  attack  upon  one  of  the  most  vulnerable  points  in  the  posi- 
tions occupied  by  Nelson.  At  seven  o'clock  the  two  adversaries 
renew  the  fight  by  advancing  against  each  other.  Buell,  deploy- 
ing Ills  three  divisions,  orders  a  movement  of  lus  whole  line,  while 
Beauregard,  who  has  concentrated  all  his  available  forces  upon 
his  right,  puts  his  columns  in  motion  at  the  same  time.  The  lat- 
ter attack  Nelson  with  extraordinary  vigor  for  fatigued  troops, 
and  the  combat  soon  becomes  general.  It  was  long  and  bloody. 
Beauregard  meets  with  a  resistance  he  had  not  anticipated,  for  he 
was  still  in  hopes  that  he  had  only  a  single  division  of  Buell's 
army  before  him.  Consequently,  he  had  gradually  stripped  the 
whole  of  his  line  to  sustain  the  attack  on  his  right.  At  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  the  division  of  Cheatham,  ordered  back 
from  the  neighborhood  of  Shiloh,  brings  him  important  assistance. 
These  gallant  soldiers  forget  their  fatigues  of  the  previous  day, 
and  show  themselves  as  strong  and  as  resolute  as  tne  ncAv  adver- 


652  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

saries  who  have  arrived  during  the  night.  The  Federal  left  is 
driven  in  more  than  once  by  their  repeated  attacks ;  but  Buell 
always  succeeds,  with  the  aid  of  his  excellent  regular  batteries,  in 
retrieving  the  fortunes  of  the  battle,  and  each  time  he  recaptures, 
together  with  the  lost  ground,  some  guns  which  had  been  mo- 
mentarily abandoned. 

Nevertheless,  at  nine  o'clock,  it  would  seem  that  victory,  bent 
upon  rewarding  the  unflinching  valor  of  the  Confederates,  is  about 
to  declare  once  more  in  their  favor,  and  that  the  defeat  of  Buell 
is  to  add  new  glory  to  that  which  they  won  the  day  before.  The 
left  flank  of  Nelson,  the  nearest  to  the  river,  not  being  protected 
by  artillery,  has  at  last  been  turned.  The  brigade  of  Animen  is 
attacked,  and  resists  with  difficulty.  The  battery  of  Terrill,  just 
landed,  comes  up  at  full  gallop,  and  takes  position  alongside  of 
it,  but  is  soon  charged  by  the  enemy,  and  barely  escapes  by  a 
speedy  retreat.  During  this  time  the  efforts  of  Crittenden  and 
Rousseau  to  break  the  enemy's  centre  have  been  frustrated  by  a 
wood  from  which  they  have  been  unable  to  dislodge  it. 

In  pursuance  of  the  plan  agreed  upon  between  the  two  Federal 
commanders,  Buell  was  to  commence  the  attack  on  the  left  with 
his  fresh  troops.  Grant's  divisions,  so  greatly  tried  on  the  pre- 
vious day,  were  waiting  for  the  din  of  battle  to  announce  to  them 
the  first  success  of  their  comrades  to  put  themselves  in  motion. 
But  as  we  have  seen,  the  army  of  the  Ohio  had  not  achieved  the 
easy  victory  it  had  counted  upon.  However,  while  the  Confed- 
erates appeared  already  certain  of  success  on  the  right,  they  were 
unable  to  gain  ground  in  the  centre,  and  confined  themselves  to 
the  energetic  defence  of  that  which  they  occupied.  At  last,  cut 
up  on  that  side  by  the  concentric  fire  of  three  regular  batteries, 
they  lose  several  guns,  together  with  the  position  which  these 
pieces  defended.  The  division  of  Cheatham  is  obliged  to  make 
a  second  countermarch  to  restore  the  battle  at  this  point.  His 
departure  paralyzes  the  decisive  effort  of  the  Confederates  against 
Nelson's  left ;  but  his  presence  does  not  assure  to  the  centre  any 
permanent  success.  In  fact,  they  cannot  continue  for  any  length 
of  time  a  struggle  in  which  they  are  doomed  to  remain  stationary. 
Little  by  little  their  attenuated  lines  fall  back  and  give  way, 
sometimes  at  one  point,  sometimes  at  another.     The  last  brigades 


SHILOH.  553 

of  McCook's  division,  which  have  just  landed,  arrive  during  the 
battle,  and  take  position  between  the  right  of  Rousseau,  who  com- 
mands the  first  brigade,  and  the  left  of  L.  Wallace ;  but  they 
cannot  entirely  fill  up  the  space  which  remains  open  between  the 
latter  division  and  the  army  of  the  Ohio.  This  gap  is  filled  by 
detachments  composed  of  troops  who  have  been  in  action  the  day 
before,  and  who  are  stationed  a  little  in  the  rear  of  the  first  line, 
under  the  command  of  Hurlbut,  McClernand,  and  Sherman. 
The  moment  has  arrived  for  the  Federals  to  make  a  vigorous 
effort.  At  a  signal  given  by  Buell,  his  three  divisions  under  Nelson, 
Crittenden,  and  McCook,  put  themselves  in  motion  at  the  same 
time.  The  soldiers  of  the  army  of  the  Ohio,  constantly  drilled 
for  the  year  past  by  a  rigid  disciplinarian,  and  trained  by  their 
long  marches  across  two  entire  States,  are  distinguished  by  their 
discipline  and  their  fine  bearing.  The  steadiness  with  which  they 
march  against  the  enemy  wins  the  admiration  of  generals  who, 
like  Sherman,  have  had  to  fight  a  whole  day  at  the  head  of  raw 
and  inexperienced  troops.  The  Federal  left  makes  one  great 
stride  forward.  Grant,  who,  while  leaving  great  freedom  of  ac- 
tion to  Buell,  has  reserved  to  himself  the  chief  direction  of  the 
order  of  battle,  seizes  this  moment  to  substitute  a  vigorous  attack 
for  the  slack  firing  of  musketry  which  the  skirmishers  have  been 
keeping  up  since  morning  on  his  right.  Hurlbut,  McClernand, 
and  Sherman  reanimate  their  worn-out  troops  by  promising  them 
a  victory  which  shall  compensate  them  for  the  defeat  of  the  pre- 
vious day,  and  lead  them  against  Beauregard's  left  centre.  Wal- 
lace, near  Owl  Creek,  finds  at  last  an  opportunity  to  measure 
strength  with  that  enemy  whom  an  unlucky  chance  has  not  al- 
lowed him  to  meet  sooner.  At  this  moment  the  entire  line  of 
both  armies  becomes  engaged.  It  is  ten  o'clock.  Fortune  on 
this  second  day  has  not  yet  pronounced  in  favor  of  either  party ; 
but  everybody  feels  that  her  favors  are  already  changing  places. 
The  Confederates  no  longer  fight  with  the  hope  of  driving  their 
enemies  into  the  river:  the  presence  of  a  new  army  has  made 
itself  too  clearly  manifest  for  them  to  cherish  that  illusion  any 
longer.  Their  leaders  henceforth  think  only  of  covering  their 
retreat  and  avoiding  a  rout.  The  attack  of  the  Federal  right 
menaces  directly  that  line  of  retreat ;  for  Sherman,  who  has  not 


554  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

forge  tteii  the  little  cliurcli  of  Sliiloh,  around  which  he  has  so 
gallantly  defended  himself  the  day  before,  directs  all  his  forces 
against  tiiat  position,  which  commands  the  principal  road  to 
Corinth :  he  must  be  stopped  at  all  hazards.  Beauregard  de- 
clines to  take  the  offensive  on  his  right,  already  much  weakened, 
and  speedily  brings  back  to  the  centre  all  the  troops  he  can 
gather.  True  to  their  tactics  of  attacking  the  enemy  suddenly, 
even  when  they  do  not  intend  to  pursue  their  success,  the  Con- 
federates strike  at  once  both  the  centre  and  the  left  of  Grant's 
line,  which  has  been  broken  by  the  irregularities  of  the  ground. 
Whole  regiments,  and  even  brigades,  have  lost  their  places.  Sher- 
man receives  the  first  shock,  and  is  staggered  by  it ;  McClernand 
experiences  a  similar  fate,  almost  at  the  same  time.  McCook 
comes  up  in  time  to  re-establish  the  battle  on  that  side ;  but  this 
movement  leaves  an  empty  space  between  his  division  and  that 
of  Crittenden,  into  which  the  enemy  rushes  instantly.  The  con- 
fusion thrown  into  this  part  of  the  Federal  line  is  soon  remedied 
by  a  few  batteries  of  regular  artillery,  which,  as  usual,  are  always 
in  the  thickest  of  the  fight.  The  Confederates,  despite  their 
courage  and  their  obstinacy,  cannot  follow  up  this  momentary 
success.  Sherman  attacks  the  Shiloh  church  with  great  vigor, 
and  this  sanctuary,  scarcely  known  before  except  to  a  few  poor 
Methodists,  becomes  for  the  second  time  a  scene  of  carnage.  Fi- 
nally, the  whole  Federal  line,  which  has  again  been  formed  by  the 
constant  efforts  of  its  commanders,  advances  against  the  enemy. 
Beauregard  has  not  waited  for  this  movement  to  order  a  retreat. 
The  Confederate  columns,  exhausted  and  decimated  by  two  days' 
fighting,  disappear  in  the  density  of  the  forest;  they  turn  their 
backs  in  sadness  upon  that  battle-field  which  they  have  vainly 
drenched  with  their  blood,  and  covered  with  their  dead  and 
wounded,  for  the  glory  they  have  so  dearly  bought  is  henceforth 
a  barren  glory. 

The  order  for  retreat  was  given  at  two  o'clock.  At  four  o'clock 
the  sound  of  the  last  musket-shots  was  dying  away  in  the  forest, 
and  the  Federals  halted  on  the  reconquered  ground.  The  battle 
of  the  7tli  was  won ;  they  had  repaired  the  defeat  of  the  preced- 
ing day.  But  these  two  days'  fighting  had  cost  them  very  dear ; 
their  collective  losses  amounted  to  more  than  thirteen  thousand 


SHILOH. 


555 


men,  nearly  eleven  thousand  of  whom  were  from  Grant's  army 
of  forty  thousand  men.  The  Confederates  had  suffered  no  less ; 
they  acknowledged  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
killed,  eight  thousand  and  twelve  wounded,  and  nine  hundred 
and  fifty-nine  prisoners.  Among  the  killed  there  were  two  gen- 
erals and  the  rebel  governor  of  Kentucky,  and  among  the  wounded 
five  generals,  two  of  whom  were  generals  of  division — proof  of 
the  courage  with  which  the  leaders  had  exposed  themselves. 
Modern  history  mentions,  we  believe,  few  instances  of  a  general- 
in-chief  being  killed,  like  Johnston,  at  the  head  of  his  troops  in 
the  height  of  a  great  battle  and  in  the  midst  of  his  success.  The 
total  losses  of  the  Confederate  army  amounted  to  ten  thousand 
six  hundred  and  ninety-nine  men — that  is  to  say,  more  than  one- 
fourth  of  its  entire  force* — but  on  the  .evening  of  the  battle  its 
strength  w^as  much  more  reduced  by  the  scattering  of  individuals 
and  the  disorganization  of  cadres  than  by  the  number  of  men 
disabled.  According  to  the  reports  of  the  Confederate  generals 
themselves,  they  had  no  more  than  twenty  thousand  men  answer- 
ing the  rolls,  all  of  them  exhausted  by  fatigue  and  hunger,  dis- 
couraged by  so  many  failures,  and  around  whom  was  hovering  a 
crowd  of  soldiers,  scattered  among  the  woods  and  along  the  roads, 
always  ready  to  be  carried  away  like  a  whirlwind  by  the  least 
symptom  of  a  panic,  and  threatening  to  communicate  its  contagion 
to  those  around  them. 

The  retreat  towards  Corinth  was  painful  and  full  of  suffering. 
Along   the  road,  huts,  houses,  churches,  everything,  had   been 

*  The  following  is  the  official  account  of  the  total  force  of  the  Confederate 
army  before  and  after  the  battle  of  Shiloh  : 


Before  the  battle. 

After  the  battle. 

First  corps,  Polk,    .     . 

.     .     9,136 

6,779 

Second  corps,  Bragg,   . 

.     .  13,589 

9,961 

Third  corps,  Hardee, 

.     .    6,789 

4,669 

Reserve,  Breckinridge, 

.     .    6,439 

4,206 

Cavalry,  Gardner, 

.     .     4,382 

4,084 

40,335 

29,636 

Killed,    1,728 

Wounded,    8,012 

Prisoners,       959 

10,699 


556  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

turned  into  hospitals.  The  wounded  whom  the  army  left  behind 
it,  huddled  together  in  miserable  hovels,  presented  a  spectacle  of 
every  variety  of  human  suffering  to  their  retreating  comrades. 
The  army  equipage,  the  ambulances,  and  the  artillery,  confused 
with  the  debris  of  so  many  different  regiments,  proceeded  with 
difficulty  along  roads  broken  up  by  the  storm  of  the  preceding 
day.  The  care  of  covering  this  delicate  operation  was  entrusted 
to  Breckenridge,  whose  reserve  corps  had  been  the  least  engaged. 

But  the  Federals  made  no  serious  attempt  to  embarrass  the 
retreat.  Buell,  thinking  that  his  soldiers,  after  having  been  for 
two  consecutive  days  on  the  march,  were  too  tired  for  him  to  take 
advantage  of  the  two  hours  of  daylight  which  yet  remained 
when  the  battle  was  brought  to  a  close,  halted  them  on  the  field 
of  battle.  On  the  following  day,  the  8th,  Sherman  made  a 
simple  demonstration,  during  which  one  of  his  regiments  was 
furiously  charged  and  driven  in  by  the  enemy's  cavalry,  a  novel 
feature  in  this  war.  His  troops  were  also  too  much  exhausted  to 
engage  in  a  serious  pursuit.  It  seems  that  this  task  might  have 
been  entrusted  to  the  army  of  the  Ohio,  which  had  suffered  much 
less,  and  which  by  harassing  the  Confederates  would  have  greatly 
aggravated  their  disaster.  This  was  not  done.  Such  inaction,  it 
appears,  must  be  attributed  to  the  want  of  harmony  between  the 
two  generals-in-chief,  each  of  whom  was  invested  with  an  inde- 
pendent command. 

The  battle  of  Shiloh  was  to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
the  war  we  are  relating.  It  is  the  first  of  those  desperate  though 
undecisive  conflicts  which  during  three  years  drenched  the  Amer- 
ican continent  in  blood.  Its  duration,  as  well  as  the  enormous 
losses  experienced  on  both  sides,  bear  sufficient  evidence  to  the 
stubbornness  of  the  combatants.  Like  nearly  all  those  battles,  its 
scene  of  action  was  a  forest  interspersed  with  but  few  clearings — 
a  circumstance  which  should  never  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  study  of 
this  war.  On  such  grourid  the  generals-in-chief  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  combine  great  concerted  movements,  and  to  handle  their 
armies  as  on  a  drill-ground.  Grant,  having  come  from  Savannah 
at  the  first  booming  of  cannon,  spent  the  day  in  running  from  one 
end  of  his  line  to  the  other,  trying  to  re-form  and  rally  his  sol- 
diers, without  sparing  himself;  he  could  do  no  more.     On  their 


SHILOH.  557 

own  side,  Johnston  and  Beauregard,  after  having  conceived  a 
simple  plan  and  explained  it  to  their  subordinates,  found  them- 
selves almost  constantly  obliged  to  direct  the  operations  over  the 
limited  space  of  ground  they  could  embrace  at  a  glance;  they 
both  displayed  great  personal  bravery. 

The  errors  committed  on  both  sides  are  easily  discernible.  Not- 
withstanding Hal  leek's  instructions,  Grant  and  his  generals  had 
neglected  to  fortify  their  positions.  They  aggravated  this  fault 
by  the  carelessness  with  which  they  guarded  their  lines ;  conse- 
quently, the  attack  was  a  perfect  surprise  to  them.  Moreover,  in 
placing  L.  "Wallace's  division  so  far  away  as  Crump's  Landing, 
Grant  neglected  to  secure  easy  communications  with  it,  which 
would  have  enabled  him  to  bring  it  upon  the  field  of  battle  to- 
wards the  middle  of  the  first  day.  Buell  had  marched  from 
Nashville  to  Columbia  with  a  degree  of  tardiness  that  could 
hardly  have  been  accounted  for  by  those  even  who  knew  how 
much  time  he  required  to  put  a  division  in  motion  on  the  drill- 
field,  if  there  had  not  been  a  cause  and  an  excuse  for  such  tardi- 
ness in  Hal  leek's  and  Grant's  despatches.  Once  beyond  Duck 
River,  he  accelerated  his  pace,  and  one  might  unhesitatingly  praise 
his  promptitude  in  forwarding  part  of  his  army  from  Savannah  to 
Pittsburg  by  water  if  he  had  not  at  the  same  time  compelled 
Nelson  to  wait  four  hours,  which  prevented  the  latter  from  reach- 
ing the  field  of  battle  before  evening ;  by  this  delay  his  colleague 
came  near  being  crushed.  Let  us  add  also  that  if  the  honor  of 
the  victory  of  the  7th  falls  mostly  upon  him,  one  has  good  reason 
to  be  astonished  that  he  did  not  follow  up  that  success  with  more 
vigor  when  he  clearly  saw  the  design  of  the  enemy  to  retreat. 

The  Confederates  were  unfortunate  in  the  choice  of  the  day  for 
their  attack.  If  they  had  fought  the  battle  twenty-four  hours 
sooner,  they  would  only  have  had  Grant  to  cope  with  ;  if  they  had 
waited  a  few  days  longer,  the  arrival  of  Van  Dorn  in  their  camp 
would  have  largely  neutralized  that  of  Buell  at  Pittsburg  Land- 
ing. They  had  only  themselves  to  blame  for  that  misfortune ; 
they  had  hesitated  at  first,  had  delayed  from  day  to  day,  then  de- 
termined too  suddenly  to  act.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  Avhy,  on 
the  field  of  battle,  they  wanted  to  push  their  right  wing  forward. 
In  doing  this  they  brought  it  closer  to  the  Tennessee,  and  exposed 


558  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

it  to  the  fire  of  the  Federal  gunboats,  and  they  were  obliged  to 
cross,  near  their  mouths,  all  the  little  streams  which  fell  perpen- 
dicularly into  the  river,  instead  of  turning  their  sources.  By  at- 
tacking with  the  left  wing,  on  the  contrary,  they  would  have 
driven  the  Federals  back  to  the  river  bank,  always  preserving 
over  them  the  advantage  of  dominant  positions.  We  are  also  of 
opinion  that  they  committed  a  grave  mistake  in  deploying  the 
different  corps  in  successive  lines  along  the  whole  front  of  the 
army,  instead  of  entrusting  a  part  of  that  front  to  each  corps, 
itself  formed  on  several  lines.  In  fact,  from  the  outset  of  the 
battle,  the  second  line  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  first,  to  sup- 
port it  where  it  was  falling  back,  and  to  occupy  the  intervals 
opened  by  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  Before  noon  the  third  line  be- 
came in  its  turn  engaged  in  the  same  manner,  here  forming  a  re- 
serve, there  going  to  the  relief  of  some  exhausted  and  disorgan- 
ized corps  ;  so  that  during  the  heiglit  of  the  engagement  the  three 
lines  found  themselves  completely  entangled  with  one  another. 
Divisions,  brigades,  and  even  regiments  being  broken  up  and  min- 
gled, the  generals  could  no  longer  get  their  commands  together, 
and  that  system,  the  real  sinew  of  armies,  which  is  called  the 
hierarchical  organization,  being  destroyed,  all  command  of  the 
whole  became  impossible.  In  short,  among  the  Confederate  offi- 
cers there  were  many  who  accused  Beauregard  of  having  been  in 
too  great  a  hurry  to  give  up  the  chances  on  the  evening  of  the 
first  day  of  gathering  all  the  fruits  of  his  success,  and  of  having 
thus  lost  the  only  opportunity  of  driving  the  invading  army  far  offi 
After  the  battle  of  Shiloh  both  sides  claimed  the  victory,  but 
both  parties  also  indulged  in  serious  reflections  upon  that  bloody 
fight.  Notwithstanding  the  pompous  despatches  of  Beauregard,* 
the  Confederates  felt  that  such  a  victory  exacted  new  sacrifices  on 

*  Beauregard  announced  to  Mr.  Davis  a  complete  victory,  only  adding,  in 
conclusion,  that  he  had  fallen  back  upon  Corinth  when  he  saw  Grant  reinforced 
by  Buell.  He  also  wrote  a  letter  to  Grant,  after  the  battle,  in  which  he  appears 
to  excuse  himself  for  having  been  beaten,  and  to  reproach  his  opponent  for  hav- 
ing received  reinforcements  during  the  battle.  This  letter  begins  thus :  "  April 
6th;  Sir,  at  the  close  of  yesterday's  battle,  my  troops  being  exhausted  by  the 
extraordinary  length  of  time  they  were  engaged  with  yours  on  that  and  the  pre- 
ceding day,  and  as  it  was  evident  that  you  had  received,  and  were  still  receiv- 
ing, reinforcements,  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  withdraw  my  troops  from  ilw  scene 
of  action." 


SHILOH.  559 

their  part.  The  army  of  the  Mississippi,  after  the  cruel  retreat 
from  Shiloh  to  Corinth,  could  not  indulge  in  any  self-deception 
concerning  the  struggle  it  had  just  undergone ;  but  it  could  boast 
of  having  fought  gallantly,  and  washed  out,  in  its  own  blood,  the 
humiliating  remembrance  of  Fort  Donelson. 

The  Federals  had  received  a  great  and  wholesome  lesson :  it 
could  not  be  lost  upon  men  of  such  sterling  worth  as  Grant  and 
Sherman.  Henceforth  both  officers  and  men  felt  the  necessity 
of  constant  vigilance,  for  they  were  all  learning  their  trade  at 
once  in  this  great  and  severe  school.  The  nation,  enlightened  by 
that  universal  publicity  which  has  become  so  deeply  grafted  upon 
its  customs,  was  perfectly  aware  that  the  success  of  the  second 
day  had  been  preceded  by  a  bloody  defeat ;  and  far  from  being 
carried  away  by  the  cries  of  victory,  it  set  itself  earnestly  to  work 
to  sustain  the  struggle,  the  terrible  magnitude  of  which  it  was  at 
last  beginning  to  appreciate.  Up  to  the  present  time,  in  fact,  the 
general  impression  had  been  that  one  or  two  battles  would  suffice 
to  decide  the  fate  of  the  continent;  and  Grant  himself  had  been 
led  astray  by  this  popular  delusion.  When  the  Confederate  army 
was  seen  to  recover  so  speedily  from  the  disaster  of  Donelson,  and 
to  strike  such  a  terrible  blow  at  the  conquerors,  who  were  already 
flattering  themselves  that  they  had  nothing  but  easy  successes  be- 
fore them,  people  at  last  began  to  understand  that,  in  asking  for 
200,000  men  to  conquer  the  West,  Sherman  had  been  right, 
against  all  the  world.  To  use  another  expression  of  this  remark- 
able man — as  profound  a  thijiker  as  he  was  just  and  intrepid  in 
action — "  It  was  necessary  that  a  combat  fierce  and  bitter,  to  test 
the  manhood  of  the  two  armies,  should  come  off,  and  for  such 
a  struggle  the  battle-field  of  Pittsburg  was  as  good  as  any  other." 
It  was,  in  fact,  from  the  date  of  this  battle  that  the  two  armies 
learned  to  know  and  to  respect  each  other.  Taught  by  the  expe- 
rience thus  gained,  their  generals  felt  that  so  long  as  such  armies 
continued  in  the  field  the  struggle  between  the  North  and  the 
South  would  not  come  to  an  end.  Hitherto  their  object  on  both 
sides  had  been  to  capture  or  defend  certain  positions,  rivers,  and 
territories.  Beauregard,  in  the  East,  had  thought  of  nothing  but 
the  defence  of  Manassas.  In  the  West  everything  had  been  sacri- 
ficed by  the  Confederates  in  order  to  preserve  the  countless  forti- 


560  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

fications  upon  which  they  thought  depended  the  possession  of  the 
central  States — Mill  Springs,  Bowling  Green,  Donelson,  Fort 
Henry,  Columbus,  and  Island  No.  10;  the  main  object  of  all 
the  efforts  of  the  Federals  had  been  to  wrest  these  positions, 
rivers,  and  territories  from  their  opponents.  Johnston  and  Beau- 
regard, whatever  may  have  been  their  individual  share  in  this  new 
idea,  put  into  practice  at  Shiloh  an  entirely  new  plan,  and  their 
efforts  were  solely  directed  to  the  destruction  of  the  enemy's  army. 
If  this  well-conceived  plan  had  not  been  frustrated  by  the  arrival 
of  Buell,  the  results  of  their  victory  would  have  demonstrated  the 
correctness  of  their  calculations.  Grant,  having  only  his  own 
forces  to  depend  upon  on  the  7th,  would  have  been  crushed; 
Van  Dorn,  arriving  a  few  days  later,  would  have  enabled  the 
Confederate  army  to  make  Buell  pay  dear  for  his  hazardous 
march  from  Nashville  to  Savannah.  The  armies  of  invasion 
once  dispersed,  ten  new  fortifications  as  strong  as  Donelson  or 
Columbus  might  have  been  erected  along  the  line  of  the  rivers, 
which  would  have  closed  their  navigation  against  the  Federal 
gun-boats ;  the  positions  conquered  by  the  North  after  so  many 
efforts  would  have  fallen  of  themselves,  and  the  war  would  have 
been  carried  back  to  the  borders  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Missouri. 

During  these  hours  of  anxiety,  when  he  saw  his  army  driven 
back  to  the  river  which  was  to  engulf  it.  Grant  no  doubt  made 
all  these  reflections ;  and  from  that  time  he  never  ceased  to  repeat 
that  the  main  object  of  war  should  be  the  destruction  of  the 
enemy's  armies  rather  than  the  conquest  of  such  or  such  portions 
of  territory.  He  saw  nothing  in  such  territory  except  the  re- 
sources in  men,  provisions,  and  materiel  which  the  armies  could 
derive  from  it ;  he  only  disputed  it  with  his  adversaries  so  long 
as  it  was  necessary  to  deprive  them  of  those  resources,  deeming  it 
more  important  to  cut  railways,  to  destroy  depots,  and  to  prevent 
all  possible  concentration  of  provisions  than  to  occupy  a  vast  ex- 
tent of  country. 

The  battle  of  Shiloh  might  therefore  have  proved  fatal  to  the 
Federals.  Notwithstanding  its  undecided  issue,  and  although 
the  Confederates  retired  with  the  honors  of  war,  it  was  destined 
to  be  productive  of  fatal  consequences  to  them,  for  it  again  com- 
pelled them  to  assume  a  strictly  defensive  attitude,  while  it  enabled 


SHILOH.  561 

their  adversaries  to  mass  at  leisure  all  the  forces  required  to  break 
the  new  line  of  which  Corinth  was  the  principal  centre. 

The  shock,  however,  had  been  so  severe  that  both  parties  felt 
an  imperative  need  of  rest  and  reorganization.  "VVe  shall  take 
advantage  of  it  to  return  with  the  reader  to  the  east  of  the  AUe- 
ghanies ;  for  since  the  battle  of  Pea  Ridge  no  military  event  de- 
serving of  mention  has  occurred  in  the  far  West.  The  conflicts 
at  Independence,  in  Missouri,  where  the  Confederate  Quantrell 
was  routed  on  the  22d  of  March,  and  those  of  Neosho,  near  the 
Arkansas  frontier,  where  the  Federal  cavalry  dispersed  a  few 
Confederate  guerillas,  were  of  no  importance,  even  for  those  un- 
inhabited regions.  Price,  who  remained  alone  to  watch  Curtis 
from  a  long  distance,  while  Van  Dorn  was  marching  upon  Mem- 
phis, was  assembling,  east  of  the  Ozark  INIountains,  all  the  Mis- 
sourians  whom  the  prestige  of  his  name  always  collected  around 
him,  and  was  preparing  to  lead  them,  as  soon  as  he  had  gathered 
a  sufficient  number,  to  the  great  rendezvous  at  Corinth.  When 
at  last,  towards  the  beginning  of  April,  he  took  up  his  line  of 
march,  following  the  course  of  White  River,  to  approach  the  Mis- 
sissippi, the  cavalry  of  Curtis  followed  him  at  a  distance,  recon- 
noitring the  country,  and  occasionally  engaging  his  rear-guard 
in  some  slight  skirmishes. 
Vol.  L— 36 


CHAPTER    III. 

BOANOEE. 

THE  terrible  battle  of  Shiloh,  as  we  have  just  stated,  was  full 
of  useful  lessons  for  both  North  and  South.  In  order  to 
continue  the  desperate  struggle  of  which  it,  so  to  speak,  marked 
but  the  beginning,  and  to  keep  up  the  full  complement  of  armies 
which  lost  one-fourth  of  their  eifective  force  in  a  single  day,  it  re- 
quired the  mustering  of  a  large  number  of  men  into  the  service 
at  any  cost.  The  Richmond  government  already  felt  this,  but 
thus  far  it  had  only  succeeded  in  deceiving  itself.  We  have  seen 
under  what  delusion  Sidney  Johnston  and  Beauregard  had  la- 
bored, by  comparing  the  actual  forces  placed  under  their  com- 
mand with  the  fictitious  total  of  troops  furnished  them  by  the 
Secretary  of  War.  The  Confederate  government  made  a  new 
and  powerful  effort  to  fill  up  the  cadres  of  its  armies  during  the 
month  of  April,  1862.  This  affords  us  a  favorable  opportunity 
for  casting  a  rapid  glance  at  all  the  measures  of  this  kind  that 
were  adopted  from  the  day  when  it  unfurled  the  standard  of  civil 
war,  up  to  the  period  when  the  machinery  it  had  called  into  exist- 
ence to  secure  all  the  able-bodied  men  of  the  country  was  in  full 
operation — that  is  to  say,  down  to  the  fall  of  1862.  The  history 
of  a  war,  and  especially  a  war  like  this,  in  which  armies  were  im- 
provised in  all  their  parts,  would  not  be  complete  without  some 
details  regarding  the  administrative  processes  which  supplied  those 
armies,  and  sometimes  exercised  a  decisive  influence  upon  the 
issue  of  the  struggle.  We  have  related  elsewhere  how  the  first 
volunteers  were  obtained  in  the  insurgent  States  for  the  purpose 
of  resisting  the  Federal  authority.  When  Mr.  Davis  sought  to 
give  them  a  general  organization,  and  to  centralize  the  resources 
of  the  slave  States,  he  met  with  but  little  success.  The  number 
of  troops  raised  by  local  initiative  was  considerable;  but  each 

662 


ROANOKE.  563 

State,  adhering  strictly  to  the  principle  of  State  sovereignty, 
wished  to  keep  those  troops  for  the  exclusive  defence  of  its  own 
soil.  A  struggle  for  power  and  influence  began  between  the 
States  which,  being  threatened  with  invasion,  did  not  want  tc 
sacrifice  themselves  for  their  neighbors  and  for  the  Confederate 
government,  which,  while  directing  general  operations,  took  no 
notice  of  those  particular  interests.  Mr.  Davis  and  the  central 
power,  pleading  the  stern  necessities  of  war,  finally  got  the  better 
of  those  earnest  and  plain-spoken  men  who  had  placed  a  literal 
construction  upon  the  programme  of  secession.  But  this  was  not 
done  without  trouble,  and  the  most  despotic  measures  had  to  be 
resorted  to  to  conquer  all  resistance.  Thus,  about  the  time  of 
which  we  have  just  been  speaking,  Beauregard  received  informa- 
tion that  one  of  the  best  divisions  in  the  army  of  the  Mississippi — 
that  of  Hindman,  composed  of  soldiers  from  Arkansas — was  strik- 
ing camp  and  preparing  to  leave  for  home.  It  had  been  sum- 
moned by  the  governor  of  its  own  State  to  repel  the  invasion  of 
Curtis.  Beauregard  hastened  to  the  spot.  This  occurred  shortly 
before  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  and  the  Confederate  army  would  have 
been  lost  by  this  kind  of  desertion ;  but  Hindman  had  received 
positive  instructions  from  his  own  State,  whose  authority  he  con- 
sidered paramount  to  all  others,  and  in  spite  of  every  argument 
he  \vas  preparing  to  obey  them,  when  Beauregard,  assuming  a 
defiant  attitude,  treated  this  desertion  as  a  mutiny,  and  threatened 
to  kill  with  his  own  hand  the  first  officer  or  soldier  who  should 
leave  the  camp.  Sustained  by  the  rest  of  the  army,  which  saw 
its  own  ruin  in  this  departure,  he  succeeded  in  intimidating  Hind- 
man's  soldiers,  and  in  shaking  the  resolution  of  their  leaders. 
They  remained ;  and  from  that  time  the  orders  of  particular  States 
no  longer  prevailed  against  those  of  the  Richmond  cabinet.  But 
it  required  more  than  a  year  to  secure  the  supremacy  of  the  latter ; 
and  this  occurrence,  which  took  place  in  1862,  will  convey  some 
idea  of  the  difficulties  which  the  delegates  of  that  government  had 
to  encounter  at  the  outset  of  the  war.  In  the  month  of  April, 
1861,  although  six  weeks  had  already  elapsed  since  the  call  for 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  of  which  mention  has  been  made, 
although  the  popular  enthusiasm  had  caused  a  large  number  of 
volunteers  to  assemble  at  every  point  of  the  slave  territory,  Mr. 


664  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Davis  had  only  been  able  to  get  thirty-five  thousand  men  among 
them  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  the  central  government.  This 
was  a  very  small  number ;  but  the  people  of  the  South,  who,  in 
an  unguarded  moment,  had  overthrown  the  mild  authority  of  the 
Federal  government,  manifested  but  little  zeal  in  behalf  of  the 
despotism  which  succeeded  it.  They  still  indulged  in  some  illu- 
sions; but  it  was  too  late  to  draw  back.  Having  irrevocably 
plunged  into  the  fatal  paths  of  rebellion,  they  were  obliged  to 
accept  all  the  consequences,  and  to  pass  through  extreme  condi- 
tions which  they  had  been  far  from  anticipating. 

Every  time  that  a  new  event  occurred  to  enlighten  the  North 
as  to  the  gravity  of  the  situation  and  to  call  for  greater  sacrifices, 
the  rebound  was  immediately  felt  in  the  South,  who  responded  on 
her  part  by  some  new  effort. 

"VVe  have  seen  that,  on  hearing  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Sumter, 
the  North  had  responded  with  enthusiasm  to  the  call  of  the 
President  for  three  hundred  thousand  volunteers.  This  national 
movement  proved  to  the  majority  of  the  Southern  people  that 
the  armed  peace,  the  maintenance  of  Avhich  their  leaders  still 
promised  them,  was  a  chimera.  The  reconciliation  which  the 
North  proposed  to  them  wounded  their  angry  spirits  as  a  humil- 
iation. They  freely  accepted  the  war.  Volunteer  regiments  were 
immediately  offered  en  masse  to  President  Davis.  A  new  law  of 
the  Congress  authorized  him,  on  the  9th  of  May,  to  organize 
regiments  himself,  by  accepting  such  companies  as  might  be 
raised  in  the  different  States ;  and  on  the  16th  of  May  the  defini- 
tive organization  of  the  Confederate  army  Avas  decreed. 

But,  after  all,  this  organization  was  nothing  but  a  confirmation 
of  the  rules  which  had  governed  the  formation  of  the  provisional 
army,  and  did  not  differ  in  any  material  point  from  that  of  the 
Federal  volunteers.  The  only  difference  was  that  it  instituted  a 
higher  grade,  that  of  general,  Avhich  was  conferred  upon  a  few 
officers  appointed  to  the  principal  commands,  and  which  they 
were  to  retain  in  the  regular  army  after  the  disbanding  of  the 
volunteers.  At  a  later  period  there  was  added  yet  another  inter- 
mediate grade,  that  of  lieutenant-general,  so  that  there  were  four 
grades  of  general  officers — brigadier-generals,  major-generals, 
lieutenant-generals,  and   generals.      This  variety  of  ranks   and 


ROANOKE.  565 

distinctions  pleased  the  Southern  people,  who  fancied  that  they 
were  thereby  giving  themselves  an  aristocratic  polish. 

As  we  have  stated,  the  third  levy  of  volunteers  in  the  North 
was  ordered  on  the  day  following  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  and  it 
was  the  excitement  caused  by  that  defeat  which  chiefly  stimulated 
them  to  enlist.  This  new  effort  on  the  part  of  an  adversary  who 
rose  up  at  the  moment  he  was  believed  to  be  crushed  excited  a 
similar  ardor  in  the  South ;  it  was  the  occasion  of  a  third  call  for 
troops  by  the  government  of  the  Confederacy,  and  the  cause  of 
the  alacrity  with  which  this  call  was  responded  to.  On  the  22d 
of  July  Mr.  Lincoln  was  authorized  to  raise  five  hundred  thou- 
sand volunteers  to  serve  for  three  years  at  the  utmost.  On  the 
8th  of  August  Mr.  Davis  received  similar  authority  from  his  own 
Congress  to  raise  four  hundred  thousand  volunteers,  enlisted  for 
the  same  period  of  three  years  at  most,  one  year  at  least.  The 
Confederate  government  had  then  about  two  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  soldiers  under  arms ;  it  had,  therefore,  of  the  four  hun- 
dred thousand  called  for,  one  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  men 
yet  to  enlist.  In  the  course  of  that  year  it  succeeded  in  raising 
one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  men,  fifty  thousand  of  whom 
came  from  those  States  which,  while  acknowledging  more  or  less 
the  Federal  authority,  contained  nevertheless  a  large  number  of 
inhabitants  who  sympathized  with  the  cause  of  the  South.  Most 
of  them  voluntarily  came  forward  to  serve  her;  a  large  number, 
however,  were  carried  off  by  cavalry  raids  {razzias)  in  the  dis- 
puted districts  of  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  and  forcibly  incorpor- 
ated into  the  Confederate  army.  By  this  means  the  total  of 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  volunteers,  above  mentioned, 
was  reached  by  the  end  of  1861. 

It  was  with  these  forces  that  the  Confederate  government  re- 
feisted,  during  the  year  1861,  the  ill-directed  efforts  of  its  adver- 
saries ;  but  when  the  war  had  attained  its  true  porportions,  at  the 
beginning  of  1 862,  these  forces  were  no  longer  sufficient.  We  have 
shown  how,  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  the  Federals,  who  were 
faintly  prosecuting  a  campaign  which  they  had  not  the  means  of 
rendering  decisive,  employed  the  autumn  in  organizing  numerous 
armies  which  were  subsequently  to  form  into  line  under  McClel- 
lan,  Buell,  and  Grant.     The  Confederate  government,  appreciat- 


566  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ing  the  danger  which  threatened  it,  was  making  analogous  efforts. 
But  it  soon  discovered  their  inefficiency,  and  was  obliged  to  resort 
to  other  means.  During  the  great  operations  of  1862  the  Federal 
armies  continued  to  be  recruited  in  the  same  manner  as  before ; 
it  was  far  otherwise  with  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy.  The 
former  were  constantly  supplied  with  volunteers  whom  the  boun- 
ties, high  pay,  and  other  nobler  motives  induced  to  rally  around 
the  flag,  while  the  draft  which  was  resorted  to  at  a  somewhat 
later  period  was  productive  of  utterly  insignificant  results.  This 
mode  of  recruiting  was,  on  the  contrary,  since  1862  the  principal 
resource  of  the  Confederate  armies,  which  before  long  were  entirely 
composed  of  conscripts.  The  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
men  who  had  gradually  filled  their  ranks  within  the  space  of  one 
year,  and  had  arrived  in  time  to  keep  the  constantly  increasing 
forces  of  the  Federals  in  check  along  an  extensive  frontier,  had 
suffered  greatly  for  the  important  service  rendered  to  their  cause. 
In  the  absence  of  bloody  battles,  sickness  had  already  cruelly 
tried  these  improvised  armies ;  then  they  were  discouraged  by  the 
disasters  they  had  sustained  in  the  West  at  the  outset  of  the  cam- 
paign of  1862.  Desertion,  under  the  influence  of  physical  and 
moral  prostration,  assumed  frightful  proportions — so  much  so, 
indeed,  that  in  February  they  were  already  materially  reduced. 
The  first  moments  of  enthusiasm  had  passed  away.  On  one 
hand,  the  volunteers  whom  that  enthusiasm  had  prompted  to  join 
the  ranks  were  impatiently  waiting  for  the  day  when  the  expira- 
tion of  their  year's  term  of  service  should  restore  them  their 
freedom ;  on  the  other  hand,  those  who  the  preceding  year  had 
resisted  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  cared  still  less  to  put  on 
the  uniform  now,  when  they  had  a  better  understanding  of  the 
privations  and  dangers  of  a  soldier's  life.  Consequently,  at  the 
time  when  every  preparation  was  being  made  in  the  North  for 
striking  a  truly  effective  blow,  the  Confederate  armies  were  on 
the  eve  of  dissolution. 

It  was  a  trying  hour.  It  would  probably  have  marked  the 
downfall  of  the  Confederacy  if  the  central  government  had  not 
boldly  thrown  aside  the  mask  of  pretended  respect  for  the  auton- 
omy of  the  States,  which  it  had  worn  until  then.  It  turned  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  tardy  remonstrances  of  those  who,  having  essayed 


ROANOKE.  5G7 

the  dangerous  game  of  revolution  against  a  national  and  popular 
gavernment,  were  now  complaining  of  the  consequences.  The 
danger  was  imminent,  and  the  government  met  it  by  resorting  to 
extreme  measures.  The  strong  hand  of  Mr.  Davis  set  all  the 
engines  in  motion  which  had  been  prepared  in  anticipation  of  this 
crisis.  The  enlistments  were  suspended,  and  the  country  was  be- 
ginning to  feel  exhausted.  It  was  important  to  find  some  means 
to  retain,  at  any  expense,  the  soldiers  who  were  in  the  service,  and 
to  fill  the  gaps  which  the  enemy  and  disease  made  daily  in  their 
ranks.  Such  was  the  double  purpose  the  Confederate  government 
had  in  view.  In  order  to  comprise  all  the  laws  concerning  en- 
listments into  the  same  chapter,  we  propose  to  speak  of  them  in 
detail  after  having  disposed  of  the  year  1862,  and  shall  confine 
ourselves  at  present  to  a  summary  view. 

The  government  began  by  addressing  the  volunteers  whose 
term  of  service  was  about  to  expire,  and  in  order  to  induce  them 
to  re-enlist  for  another  year  offered  them  two  months'  leave  of 
absence.  Some  time  after,  when  its  authority  was  felt  to  rest  on  a 
firmer  foundation,  it  did  not  keep  its  mild  promise.  The  leave 
of  absence  which  had  been  proffered  threatened  to  bring  about  a 
desertion  en  masse  at  a  singularly  critical  moment.  The  volun- 
teers were  allowed  to  re-enlist  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  or  for 
not  less  than  two  years,  on  condition  that  they  should  not  leave 
their  ranks ;  and  as  a  kind  of  compensation,  they  were  allowed  the 
privilege  of  changing  their  officers  and  of  electing  new  ones.  This 
permission  was,  in  fact,  an  order,  for  the  rule  of  political  euphem- 
isms was  now  established.  So,  when  some  regiments  hesitated  to 
avail  themselves  of  this  permission,  they  were  treated  as  seditious, 
and  the  most  refractory  soldiers,  on  the  point  of  being  shot,  only 
saved  their  lives  by  the  prompt  signature  of  their  comrades  to  the 
compact  of  a  new  enlistment.  Finally,  in  order  not  to  lose  the  ser- 
vices of  any  one  of  those  volunteers  who  were  beginning  to  regret 
their  first  enthusiasm,  the  term  of  service  of  those  who,  when  once 
set  legally  free,  would  be  placed  by  their  age  beyond  the  reach  of 
conscription,  was  lengthened  for  periods  of  three  months  repeated. 
It  was  i\rdered  that  they  should  not,  under  any  circumstances, 
leave  tht  service  until  the  effective  force  of  the  regiment  to  which 
they  belonged  was  complete.     All  these  violent  measures,  how- 


668  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ever,  were  insufficient ;  they  prevented  the  immediate  dissolution 
of  th(i  armies,  but  they  could  not  repair  the  losses  to  any  great 
extent. 

It  was  necessary  to  reach  all  that  able-bodied  portion  of  the 
population  that  had  remained  at  home  when  the  organization  of 
volunteers  took  place.  Consequently,  from  the  15th  of  April, 
1862,  the  conscription  was  established  in  all  its  rigor.  The  law 
regulating  its  operations,  which  we  propose  to  analyze  hereafter, 
continued  in  force  until  the  last  days  of  the  Confederacy,  and 
soon  entirely  replaced  voluntary  enlistments.  Able-bodied  men 
over  eighteen  years  of  age  and  under  thirty-five  were  placed  as  a 
class  at  the  disposal  of  the  executive  power,  which  was  finally 
able  to  dispense  with  all  formalities,  such  as  drawing  lots  or  di- 
viding into  classes,  which  in  other  countries  tend  to  lighten  the 
burden  of  this  blood-tax.  It  applied  the  simple  processes  and 
expedients  practiced  in  France  during  the  first  empire.  All  who 
desired  to  avoid  the  conscription  were  allowed  one  month's  time 
to  enlist  voluntarily.  Men  over  thirty-five  years  of  age,  who 
were  thereby  exempted  from  serving  in  the  Confederate  army, 
were  enrolled  into  the  militia  up  to  the  age  of  fifty-five.  It  is 
true  that  such  troops  were  not  obliged  to  fight  except  upon  the 
soil  of  the  State  to  which  they  belonged  ;  but  as  the  war  had  been 
carried  more  or  less  into  the  territory  of  all  the  rebel  States,  the  mi- 
litia had  no  more  chance  of  escaping  the  hardships  of  active  ser- 
vice than  the  conscripts.  Indeed,  their  duties  were  the  same  as 
those  performed  by  the  other  contingents. 

After  having  once  determined  upon  such  a  measure,  it  was  im- 
portant to  carry  it  out  as  thoroughly  as  possible,  in  order  to  turn 
all  the  resources  of  the  Confederacy  to  account.  The  more  those 
resources  became  exhausted,  the  greater  the  necessity  for  a  rigor- 
ous application  of  the  conscription  law.  All  able-bodied  men 
who,  without  special  exemption,  remained  away  from  the  army 
were  evidently  deserters  or  recusants.  In  seizing  them,  there- 
fore, wherever  found,  and  sending  them  to  join  the  army  without 
any  other  formality,  there  could  be  no  trespassing  the  limits  of 
the  law.  A  fanatical  portion  of  the  population,  eagerly  adopting 
the  calling  of  informers,  assisted  the  agents  of  the  central  power 
in  hunting  conscripts;  and  these  agents  carried  their  despotism  to 


ROANOKE.  569 

the  remotest  corners  of  the  Confederacy.  Everything  conspired, 
moreover,  to  strengthen  and  confirm  this  despotism ;  the  very 
forms  of  liberty  were  rejected,  and  Congress,  holding  only  secret 
sessions,  became  the  blind  instrument  of  the  executive  power. 

After  this  rapid  glance  at  the  mode  by  which  the  secession 
leaders  had  raised  their  army,  no  one  need  be  astonished  at  the 
severe  discipline  introduced  into  their  ranks  from  the  outset. 
They  had  been  accustomed  to  enforce  it  upon  their  slaves.  It 
would  be  more  correct  to  say,  however,  that  the  soldiers  were  at 
times  turbulent,  but  that  the  M'ant  of  discipline  was  corrected 
by  means  almost  always  violent.  Most  of  their  officers  had  been 
taught  to  entertain  but  little  regard  for  the  lives  of  others ;  and 
from  the  first  gathering  of  volunteers,  bloody  punishments,  sum- 
mary or  judicial,  were  inflicted,  without  exciting  any  of  that 
opposition  which  would  have  been  encountered  in  the  North. 
Numerous  executions  were  the  means  of  quelling  the  attempts  at 
revolt  which  the  conflicts  between  the  State  authorities  and  the 
central  power,  or  the  irregularity  of  pay,  frequently  gave  rise  to 
at  the  commencement ;  and  the  least  suspicion  of  desertion,  even 
to  the  interior,  was  mercilessly  punished  with  death. 

We  have  stated  that  the  want  of  depots  had  been  a  constant 
source  of  weakness  to  the  Federal  army,  that  regiments  had  been 
reduced  to  skeletons  for  want  of  recruits,  and  that  the  bounties 
had  failed  to  keep  up  their  effective  force;  the  consolidation, 
which  was  only  introduced  at  the  close  of  the  war,  had  no  other 
effect  than  to  unite  the  old  regiments,  whereas  it  should  have 
merged  the  new  regiments  into  the  old  ones.  When  conscription 
was  resorted  to,  the  number  of  men  furnished  by  that  process  was 
so  insignificant  that  it  would  not  have  sufficed  to  form  d(?p6ts 
capable  of  supplying  the  regiments  in  the  field.  In  fact,  this 
local  conscription,  which  was  only  brought  into  operation  for  the 
purpose  of  completing  the  figure  required  for  those  contingents 
whicli  had  not  been  filled  up  by  voluntary  enlistments,  differed 
entirely  from  that  which  prevailed  in  the  Confederate  States  in 
18G2.  In  the  South,  all  able-bodied  men  being  enlisted,  there 
was  no  longer  any  fixed  limit  for  the  contingent  due  from  each 
State ;  consequently,  the  States  had  no  longer  any  interest  to  en- 
courage voluntary  enlistments  as  in  the  North,  where,  the  quota 


57C  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

of  each  State  having  once  been  furnished,  no  further  demands 
could  be  made  upon  it.  The  result,  as  we  have  said,  was  that 
the  recruiting  of  the  army  was  soon  exclusively  carried  on  by 
conscription.  The  central  government  was  constantly  obliged  to 
intervene  in  order  to  enforce  its  application ;  and  leaving  the  con- 
trol of  the  militia  to  the  special  authorities  of  the  States,  it  finally 
substituted  its  own  action  for  theirs  in  the  organization  of  other 
troops.  It  thus  found  itself  freed  from  all  the  embarrassments 
which  the  rights  of  the  States  and  the  enlistment  contract  entered 
into  with  the  volunteer  imposed  upon  the  authorities  of  Washing- 
ton. It  could  dispose,  as  freely  as  any  European  government, 
of  the  soldiers  whom  the  law  had  authorized  it  to  raise.  It  made 
use  of  this  power  without  any  reservation  whatever.  Camps  of 
instruction  were  formed  during  the  early  part  of  the  war  for  the 
purpose  of  assembling  and  organizing  the  volunteers ;  these  camps 
were  further  extended,  and  became  permanent  d6p6ts  for  drilling 
recruits  and  for  maintaining  the  effective  strength  of  the  regiments 
in  the  field.  As  the  conscripts  of  the  South  had  no  choice  of  regi- 
ment when  once  taken  by  the  recruiting  officers,  they  were  promis- 
cuously forwarded  to  one  of  these  ddpots.  There  they  remained, 
simply  divided  by  States,  until  the  day  when  they  were  put  on 
the  march  to  join  one  of  the  armies  in  the  field,  and  to  be  in- 
corporated into  those  regiments  of  their  own  State  which  most 
needed  reinforcements.  This  proceeding  was  certainly  much  at 
variance  with  Southern  theories  regarding  the  sovereignty  of 
States,  but  it  rendered  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy  more  homo- 
geneous, and  thus  assured  them,  for  a  time,  a  decided  superiority 
over  their  adversaries. 

Both  parties,  it  is  seen,  were  eagerly  preparing  for  the  struggle. 
If  the  conflict  did  not  commence  as  soon  in  the  East  as  on  the 
great  rivers  of  the  West,  it  was  the  absence  of  those  ever-open 
liighways,  together  with  the  importance  of  the  game  about  to  be 
played,  and  not  the  want  of  military  resources,  which  kept  the 
combatants  apart. 

We  left  the  army  of  the  Potomac  in  its  quarters  around  Wash- 
ington at  the  close  of  1861,  organizing  for  the  great  campaign 
which  was  to  open — at  least  it  was  so  hoped — the  gates  of  Rich- 
mond to  the  Federal  troops  in  the  spring.     Nothing  had  been 


ROANOKE.  671 

si^ared  in  the  pi  eparation  of  this  campaign.  The  nation  had  been 
prodigal  of  men  and  money ;  the  government  had  placed  all  its 
resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  new  commander-in-chief,  and  he 
was  applying  himself  with  indefatigable  zeal  to  turn  them  to 
account.  A  few  mistakes,  some  trivial  errors  and  imprudences 
committed  by  the  civil  and  military  authorities,  were  unfor- 
tunately destined  to  compromise  the  results  of  so  many  eiforts, 
even  before  the  season  permitted  the  army  to  take  the  field. 

We  have  seen  what  a  fatal  influence  political  considei^tions  had 
exercised  over  military  operations  in  Virginia  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  owing  to  the  situation  of  Washington.  The  army  of 
the  Potomac,  having  its  headquarters  in  the  Federal  capital,  was 
therefore  in  the  President's  hands  and  under  the  eyes  of  Con- 
gress, and  was  doomed  to  see  the  civil  authority,  controlled  by  a 
wild  ardor  or  miserable  intrigues,  constantly  interfering  with  its 
management.  Moreover,  being  entrusted  Avith  the  defence  of  this 
capital,  it  could  not  move  one  stej)  away  from  it  without  causing 
inquietude  to  those  even  who  were  loudest  in  denouncing  its  in- 
action. Consequently,  during  the  four  years  of  its  collective  ex- 
istence, it  had  to  struggle  against  unjust  impatience  and  puerile 
alarms,  which  frequently  lost  it  the  fruits  of  long  labors  and 
painful  sacrifices. 

After  the  severe  lesson  of  Bull  Run,  however,  the  good  sense 
of  the  public  silenced  the  clamors  of  criticism.  General  McClel- 
lau  knew  how  to  make  excellent  use  of  this  respite ;  but  he  de- 
ceived himself  as  to  its  duration.  Shortly  after  the  disaster  of 
Ball's  Bluff,  his  elevation  to  the  supreme  command  of  the  army 
entailed  upon  him  the  most  overwhelming  cares ;  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  all  the  armies  of  the  republic,  and  the  plans  for  combined 
action  he  had  conceived,  no  longer  allowed  him  to  think  of  put- 
ting the  troops,  the  command  of  which  he  had  especially  reserved 
for  himself,  immediately  in  the  field.  The  people,  who  placed  at 
first  entire  confidence  in  the  young  general,  and  properly  mistrust- 
ed their  own  judgment,  had  easily  become  reconciled  to  a  long 
inaction  during  those  months  when  the  season  might  yet  have 
admitted  of  military  operations.  But  their  patience  began  to  give 
out  when  the  opportunity  had  passed,  just  as  the  coming  of  win- 
ter doomed  the  army  of  the  Potomac  to  S'^veral  months  of  inac- 


572  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA.. 

tivity.  The  soldiers,  fascinated  by  the  attractions  of  a  life  which 
was  ue^7  to  them ;  the  lower  officers,  stimulated  by  the  hope  of 
some  distinction — all  were  anxious  to  take  their  revenge  without 
delay,  and  it  required  all  the  authority  their  general  had  estab- 
lished among  them  to  make  them  bear  this  long  inaction  without 
a  murmur.  The  leaders,  on  the  contrary,  deeply  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  their  responsibility,  with  sufficient  experience  to  see  all 
that  was  wanting  in  their  men,  and  forgetting  at  times  that  their 
adversaries  were  in  a  similar  condition,  were  nearly  all  desirous 
of  postponing  the  opening  of  the  campaign  until  spring. 

This  delay  certainly  involved  some  serious  military  and  polit- 
ical disappointments ;  but  its  most  fatal  consequences  must  be  at- 
tributed to  the  spirit  of  party,  which  sought  to  employ  it  for  its 
own  purposes.  President  Lincoln  and  General  McClellan,  al- 
though differing  widely  in  character  and  disposition,  might  easily 
have  come  to  an  understanding,  for  they  were  actuated  by  a  pat- 
riotism equally  disinterested.  But  the  latter  belonged  to  the  Dem- 
ocratic party,  which  had  opposed  the  election  of  the  former.  In 
America,  where  everybody  entertains  an  opinion,  and  must  ad- 
here to  it  not  to  lose  influence,  the  party  which  attains  to  power 
is  very  exclusive  in  the  distribution  of  places  and  favors.  Con- 
sequently, the  nomination  of  General  McClellan,  and  several  other 
officers  of  the  same  party,  to  important  commands,  was  regarded 
as  a  significant  fact.  It  was  construed  as  a  pledge  of  patriotic 
harmony  among  all  those  who  rehiained  loyal  to  the  national 
cause.  But  this  kind  of  reconciliation  could  not  extinguish  party 
jealousies  and  personal  animosities.  The  most  intolerant  among 
those  who  had  carried  Mr.  Lincoln  into  power  could  not  forgive 
the  young  Democratic  general  for  the  high  position  he  had 
achieved,  and  both  in  Congressional  committees  and  in  the  bu- 
reaux of  the  War  Department  the  interests  of  the  army  were 
more  than  once  sacrificed  to  their  unjust  prejudices  against  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  late  opponents  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  althougli 
they  had  rallied  around  him  in  defence  of  the  Union  when  men- 
aced, were  nevertheless  convinced  that  his  election  was  the  cause 
of  all  the  public  misfortunes.  Attached  to  General  McClellan  by 
old  personal  and  political  ties,  they  delighted  in  beholding  in  him 
the  future  chief  of  their  party  and  the  representative  of  all  their 


ROANOKE.  573 

ideas.  They  replied  to  tlie  attacks  of  their  adversaries  with 
threats.  Their  language,  always  imprudent,  and  even  reprehen- 
sible, although  spoken  in  low  tones,  was  at  last  heard  by  a  people 
noted  for  their  scrupulous  observance  of  the  formalities  of  law, 
and  always  mistrustful  of  military  chieftains.  Too  much  ab- 
sorbed by  other  cares,  General  McClellan  was  unable  to  silence 
his  dangerous  friends,  and  thus  more  than  once  his  own  acts  were 
distorted  in  a  manner  which  his  conscience  loudly  repudiated.  On 
one  occasion,  as  he  was  paying  a  just  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
qualities  of  his  adversaries,  in  language  full  of  dignity  and  pro- 
priety, there  happened  to  be  by  his  side  some  old  political  allies 
of  the  South,  who  ventured  to  express  a  hope  that  they  might 
soon  find  auxiliaries  in  them  against  the  "  accursed  abolitionists." 
They  wished  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  first  victory  of  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  would  enable  its  chief  to  play  the  part  of  a 
mediator,  to  impose  a  peace  of  their  own  choosing  upon  both  the 
government  of  Washington  and  that  of  Richmond,  pretending 
that  they  saw  a  deep  political  combination  in  the  inaction  to  which 
McClellan  was  condemned  by  the  difficulties  of  his  task.  His 
loyalty,  his  patriotism,  and  the  character  of  the  American  people 
fortunately  rendered  all  such  dreams  perfectly  chimerical ;  but 
they  afforded  a  plausible  pretext  to  his  enemies,  and  the  honest 
soul  of  President  Lincoln  was  more  than  once  troubled  by  it. 
These  seeds  of  mistrust  brought  forth  fruits  fatal  to  the  Federal 
cause.  In  representing  General  McClellan  to  Mr.  Lincoln  as  an 
ambitious  politician,  he  was  persuaded  to  interfere  personally  in 
military  affairs.  The  practical  good  sense  and  innate  uprightness 
which  had  won  the  latter  the  appellation  of  "  Honest  Abraham  " 
failed  him  on  this  occasion.  He  brought  his  legal  habitudes  to 
questions  the  solution  of  which  admitted  of  no  compromise. 
While  leaving  the  responsibility  of  command  to  McClellan,  he 
thought  he  could  withdraw  from  him  a  portion  of  that  confidence 
he  had  manifested  in  him  until  then.  He  thought  himself  skilful 
in  allaying  the  prejudices  of  some,  and  the  ambition  of  others,  by 
creating  military  commands  for  politicians,  and  giving  them  di- 
visions, as  we  bestow  diplomatic  or  administrative  posts.  In 
short,  being  surrounded  by  cabinet  strategists,  he  ended  in  be- 
lieving himself   capable  of   directing  military  operations.     We 


574  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

shall  presently  see  what  frightful  disasters  he  thus  brought  upon 
the  Federal  armies.  But  he  prepared  their  reverses  even  before 
they  had  taken  the  field,  for  he  never  would  either  frankly  reject 
or  accept  the  plans  which  the  commander-in-chief  submitted  for 
his  approbation. 

The  day  had  gone  by  when  Mr.  Lincoln,  unexpected,  alone, 
and  on  foot,  would  make  an  evening  visit  to  the  little  house 
which  served  as  the  headquarters  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac, 
take  an  interest  in  all  the  details  of  the  work  undertaken  by 
General  McClellan,  and  have  them  explained  to  him,  aiding  and 
encouraging  the  general  with  all  his  power ;  when  at  other  times, 
while  waiting  for  McClellan,  he  would  take  a  seat  in  a  corner  by 
the  fire,  among  some  officers,  to  listen  to  the  stories  of  old  sol- 
diers of  the  Mexican  war,  or  to  repeat  to  the  youngest  among 
them,  with  his  habitual  good  nature,  one  of  his  favorite  anecdotes. 

General  McClellan,  overburdened  with  work,  had  been  seized 
with  typhoid  fever,  which  was  then  raging  in  Washington,  and 
seemed  about  to  succumb  on  his  bed  of  suffering.  At  the  time 
we  have  now  reached,  the  army,  shut  up  in  its  quarters  by  the 
mud,  no  longer  possessed  even  the  distraction  of  manoeuvres  and 
drills.  Their  chiefs  naturally  came  to  spend  their  hours  of  forced 
leisure  in  the  capital,  and  it  was  difficult  for  them  to  escape  from 
the  thousands  of  intrigues  so  easily  carried  on  in  a  small  city  in 
which  a  great  government  resides.  A  committee  appointed  by 
both  houses  of  Congress  in  the  month  of  December,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  inquiring  into  the  conduct  of  the  war,  had  become  the 
instrument  of  all  the  prejudices  excited  against  McClellan  and  a 
certain  number  of  his  subordinates.  So  long  as  this  committee 
confined  itself,  in  the  exercise  of  that  vigilance  which  appertains 
to  the  supreme  councils  of  the  nation,  to  matters  connected  with  the 
general  conduct  of  the  war,  its  influence  was  salutary.  In  requir- 
ing generals  and  civil  functionaries  to  appear  at  its  bar ;  in  exam- 
ining their  past  conduct,  compelling  their  evidence,  and  thus  collect- 
ing valuable  documents  both  for  the  present  and  for  future  his- 
tory,— it  enlightened  the  country  and  placed  a  wholesome  restraint 
upon  men  discharging  public  functions.  But  we  have  only  to 
look  into  one  of  the  seven  volumes  in  which  its  labors  are  recorded 
to  see  that  the  committee  did  not  confine  itself  to  this  task.  Being 


ROANOKE.  575 

composed  of  men  utterly  unacquainted  with  military  matters  and 
the  rules  of  discipline,  this  secret  tribunal  proceeded  to  interrogate 
subordinate  officers  regarding  the  campaign  plans  of  their  chiefs, 
encouraged  their  criticisms,  addressed  to  them  the  strangest  ques- 
tions to  gratify  a  childish  curiosity,  and  meddled  with  everything 
without  being  responsible  for  anything.  For  several  months  this 
committee  did  nothing  else  but  try  General  McClellan  and  the 
officers  who  had  the  misfortune  to  displease  the  extreme  radicals. 
The  President  himself,  being  obliged  to  act  with  this  committee, 
too  frequently  followed  its  baneful  suggestions,  to  the  injury  of 
the  Federal  armies. 

The  patience  of  the  people  reached  at  last  those  bounds  which 
General  McClellan  had  not  foreseen.  The  pressure  of  public 
opinion  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  became  too  strong  for  him  to  resist  it : 
he  would  have  liked,  he  said,  "  to  have  borrowed  the  army  for  a 
few  days,  on  condition,"  as  he  quaintly  added,  "  of  knowing  what 
to  do  with  it."  This  is  precisely  where  the  difficulty  lay.  What, 
in  fact,  was  the  army  of  the  Potomac  to  do  in  response  to  the  cry 
which  was  urging  it  on  to  Riclimond  ?  On  what  ground  was  it 
to  seek  revenge  for  Bull  Run  from  Johnston's  soldiers  ? 

Winter  had  found  the  latter  still  occupying  the  battle-field  of 
the  21st  of  July.  Bad  weather  had  converted  the  few  leagues  of 
country  which  separated  them  from  the  Federal  cantonments  into 
an  impassable  barrier,  and  their  number  was  much  reduced.  It 
was  difficult  to  subsist  at  Manassas  during  that  season  the  great 
army  that  had  been  waiting  for  McClellan's  attack  until  the  end 
of  the  year,  and  which  then  had  numbered  nearly  one  hundred 
thousand  men.  A  portion  of  those  troops,  perfectly  useless  in 
Virginia,  might  have  been  of  great  service  in  the  West,  where 
the  fitting  out  of  Foote's  fleet  indicated  the  approach  of  military 
operations.  Consequently,  during  the  first  two  months  of  the  year 
a  detachment  of  about  fourteen  thousand  men  was  sent  from  John- 
ston's army  to  that  of  Beauregard,  who,  as  we  have  said,  was 
earnestly  calling  for  some  of  his  old  soldiers  of  Bull  Run.  We 
have  seen  at  the  battle  of  Shiloh  that  he  had  good  cause  to  rely 
upon  them.  Manassas  Junction  was  the  central  point  of  the  long 
Confederate  line,  extending  from  the  foot  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  at 
Leesburg,  as  far  as  the  confluence  of  the  Occoquan  and  the  Poto- 


576  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

mac.  A  great  portion  of  it  was  covered  by  the  course  of  Bull 
Run,  Johnston  had  the  tact  to  magnify  the  number  of  his  forces 
in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  South ;  but  it  was  well  known  to 
the  general  staff  of  the  Federals  that  in  the  beginning  of  1862  he 
had  only  fifty-three  or  fifty -five  thousand  men  of  all  arms  on  that 
line ;  that  on  the  right  the  lower  course  of  the  Potomac  was 
guarded  by  about  ten  thousand  men ;  and  that  Jackson,  on  the 
left,  occupied  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah  with  twelve  or  fifteen 
thousand,  many  of  whom  were  militia  and  guerillas ;  this,  at  the 
utmost,  figured  up  seventy-five  thousand  men.  A  winter  the 
extreme  rigor  of  which  was  new  to  most  of  the  Confederate  sol- 
diers had  developed  diseases  which  greatly  diminished  the  num- 
ber of  combatants  in  the  army  of  Northern  Virginia.  The  fol- 
lowing figures  have  been  obtained  from  Confederate  official 
sources,  where  the  truth  is  more  likely  to  have  been  underrated 
than  overdrawn.  They  convey  an  idea  of  the  powerful  inflaence 
exercised  by  the  season  and  by  ennui  in  reducing  the  strength  of 
the  Southern  armies,  without  the  aid  of  battles.  On  the  31st  of 
October,  1861,  the  army  of  Northern  Virginia,  out  of  sixty-six 
thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-three  men,  counted  forty-four 
thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  present,  and  twenty-two 
thousand  one  hundred  and  twelve  absent.  On  the  31st  of  De- 
cember, out  of  ninety-eight  thousand  and  eighty-eight  men  there 
were  sixty-two  thousand  one  hundred  and  twelve  present  and 
thirty-five  thousand  nine  hundred  and  seventy-six  absent.  Finally, 
when  reduced,  on  the  28th  of  February,  1862,  by  the  detachment 
sent  to  Beauregard,  to  an  effective  total  of  eighty-four  thousand 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five,  it  no  longer  counted  more  than 
forty-seven  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventeen  present,  against 
thirty-six  thousand  six  hundred  and  eight  absent.  The  data  are 
wanting  to  enable  us  to  fix. the  exact  proportion  of  the  sick  and 
deserters  in  this  number  of  absentees,  which,  as  it  increased  at  a 
frightful  rate,  had  at  last  brought  the  representative  figure  down 
to  three-sevenths  of  the  nominal  total  of  the  army ;  but  it  is  easy 
to  show  that  the  information  obtained  by  the  Federal  staff,  through 
the  reports  of  deserters  and  fugitive  negroes,  which  were  shortly 
after  confirmed  at  the  time  of  the  evacuation  of  Manassas,  was 
not  far  from  the  truth.     Indeed,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  out  of 


ROANOKE.  577 

Jackson's  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  men  there  were  only  five  or 
six  thousand  troops  in  the  pay  of  the  central  government  and  borne 
upon  the  rolls  of  the  army,  the  total  force  of  that  army  in  men, 
either  present  in  the  ranks  or  scattered  among  the  division  hos- 
pitals, is  reduced  to  about  seventy  thousand  men,  out  of  whom  it 
is  no  exaggeration  to  reckon  twelve  thousand  sick,  and  conse- 
quently forty-eight  thousand  able-bodied  men,  which  is  the  offi- 
cial figure  given  above.  But  under  the  same  date,  the  secret  ser- 
vice of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  credulous  as  the  police  force 
almost  invariably  is,  represented  the  Confederate  army  as  one 
liundred  and  fifteen  thousand  strong,  with  three  hundred  cannon. 
The  exaggerations  emanating  from  this  source  contributed  to  a 
great  extent,  perliaps,  in  rendering  General  McClellan  excessively 
cautious. 

The  Confederates  had  constructed  a  considerable  number  of 
fortifications  along  the  line  of  Bull  Run  and  the  Manassas  pla- 
teau, but  they  had  not  armed  them  with  heavy  cannon,  which 
proved  that  the  leaders  contemplated  tlieir  abandonment.  But 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Lower  Potomac,  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Occoquan  to  Acquia  Creek,  they  had  erected  batteries,  which  were 
mounted  with  the  most  powerful  guns  at  their  disposal.  The 
navigation  of  the  Potomac,  therefore,  as  we  have  stated,  had  been 
interrupted  by  these  batteries,  and  the  injurious  effects  of  this  in- 
terruption were  beginning  to  be  sensibly  felt  in  Washington. 
This  blockade  soon  became  the  principal  complaint  against  Gen- 
eral McClellan,  and  its  removal  formed  a  conspicuous  feature  ir. 
all  the  programmes  of  operations  devised  at  that  period. 

The  chiefs  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  had  several  plans  of 
campaign  to  select  from.  Between  Johnston's  army,  encamped 
at  Manassas,  and  Pichmond,  which  was  their  objective  point,  ther& 
lay  a  tract  of  wooded  and  broken  country  greatly  adapted  to  de- 
fensive warfare,  intersected  by  several  rivers  and  numerous  water- 
courses, all  running  perpendicularly  to  the  direction  of  march 
which  the  Federals  would  have  had  to  follow.  Was  the  unfortu- 
nate experiment  of  the  previous  year  to  l>e  repeated,  and  without 
taking  into  consideration  the  moral  effect  of  the  memories  it  had 
left  behind?  should  they  go  and  attack  the  Confederates  in  front 
in  their  newly-fortified  positions  of  Manassas  ?     This  would  have 

Vol.  I.— 37 


578  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

been  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns.  But  to  storm  such  entrenched 
positions  with  an  army  that  had  never  yet  been  under  fire  would 
have  been  to  expose  it  to  probable  defeat.  In  short,  even  if  this 
army  should  be  successful,  it  could  not  gather  the  fruits  of  vic- 
tory, because,  having  no  rivers  whereby  to  obtain  its  supplies,  it 
would  not  have  been  able  to  pursue  the  enemy  as  he  disappeared 
in  the  forest  after  having  destroyed  the  railways  behind  him. 

Should  an  attempt  be  made  to  turn  the  Confederate  positions 
on  either  flank ; — in  order  to  flank  them  on  the  west,  it  would  have 
been  necessary  to  take  the  main  portion  of  the  army  to  Harper's 
Ferry  and  proceed  by  following  the  line  of  the  Shenandoah. 
This  large  and  fertile  valley  afforded  great  facilities  for  subsisting 
and  marching,  but  its  direction  would  have  taken  the  Federals 
too  far  from  Richmond,  exposed  their  own  line  of  communication, 
and  unnecessarily  uncovered  Washington.  Notwithstanding  these 
drawbacks,  this  plan  was  commenced,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 

To  the  east  the  courses  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Occoquan  did 
not  admit  of  manoeuvring  for  the  purpose  of  turning  the  Con- 
federate right.  But  the  batteries  which  blockaded  the  approaches 
of  the  capital  had  to  be  got  rid  of  at  any  cost.  The  navy  had 
declared  that  it  could  not  undertake  that  task  alone.  The  chief 
of  the  Federal  corps  of  engineers,  after  reconnoitring  the  enemy's 
positions,  had  asked  for  three  divisions  to  carry  them.  Yet  even 
this  force  was  too  small ;  for  it  was  evident  that  to  destroy  them 
effectually  it  was  essential  to  occupy  them  permanently,  and  to  be 
prepared,  therefore,  to  withstand  the  shock  of  all  the  enemy's 
forces.  Accordingly,  it  was  proposed  to  employ  the  entire  army 
massed  around  Washington  in  this  operation.  While  a  portion 
of  it,  crossing  the  Lower  Potomac,  should  engage  the  batteries, 
the  rest  were  to  attack  the  Confederates  in  front,  and  join  hands 
with  the  troops  that  should  have  landed.  This  was  risking  a 
great  deal  for  the  sake  of  a  trifling  result ;  for  the  batteries  that 
blockaded  the  Potomac  were  merely  an  accessory  destined  to  fall 
whenever  the  Confederates  should  lose  Manassas.  It  was  to  divide 
the  Federal  troops  and  place  the  enemy  between  the  two  fractions. 
In  short,  it  was  to  attempt  a  landing,  under  the  most  unfavorable 
circumstances,  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  at  a  point  where  the 
latter  could  easily  concentrate  all  his  forces. 


ROANOKE.  579 

So  that,  whether  the  attack  was  made  upon  the  centre,  the  left, 
or  the  right  of  the  Confederates,  it  was  still  an  extremely  hazard- 
ous enterprise.  But  could  they  not  find,  in  seeking  to  reach 
Richmond,  the  capture  of  which  was  the  sole  aim  of  the  cam- 
paign, a  more  vulnerable  point  than  Manassas  ?  Since  the  Fed- 
erals had  control  of  the  sea,  could  not  this  advantage  be  turned 
to  account  to  transfer  the  theatre  of  war  elsewhere,  and  strike  the 
enemy  far  from  a  battle-field  of  his  own  choosing  and  haunted  by 
sad  memories?  Such,  from  the  end  of  1861,  were  the  reflections 
of  General  McClellan.  His  attention  had  been  directed  to  the 
facilities  afforded  by  the  numerous  steamers  which  ploughed  the 
large  American  rivers  for  the  transportation  of  troops  for  a  short 
time,  and  by  the  peculiar  conformation  of  the  Virginia  coast  for 
the  debarkation  of  an  army.  We  have  already  mentioned  that 
south  of  the  Potomac  three  deep  bays,  known  by  the  names  of 
Rappahannock,  York,  and  James  River,  empty  into  the  Chesa- 
peake, a  vast  inland  sea,  which  runs  parallel  with  the  Atlantic  to 
a  distance  of  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  These  estuaries 
are  separated  by  long  peninsulas  very  favorable  for  landing :  the 
army  which  makes  one  of  those  peninsulas  the  base  of  operations 
can  rest  its  two  flanks  upon  arms  of  the  sea  which  ensure  for  it  the 
protection  of  the  navy.  General  McClellan  conceived  the  idea  of 
embarking  all  the  available  portion  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
at  Annapolis,  at  the  extremity  of  the  Chesapeake,  to  convey  it  to 
the  borders  of  one  of  these  estuaries,  and  thence  to  march  upon 
Richmond,  availing  himself  as  much  as  possible  of  the  water- 
courses. This  plan  was  in  conformity  with  the  military  rule 
which  counsels  that  the  enemy  should  be  sought  where  he  does 
not  expect  to  be  attacked.  It  lessened  to  a  considerable  extent 
the  distance  to  be  marched  in  order  to  reach  Richmond ;  the 
rivers,  instead  of  being  formidable  obstacles,  became  powerful 
auxiliaries ;  while  the  difference  of  climate  would  enable  the  com- 
mander-in-chief to  begin  the  campaign  fifteen  days  sooner  than 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Washington.  Owing  to  the  maritime 
resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  army,  the  enemy  could  be  fore- 
stalled along  the  coast,  and  several  days'  march  be  accomplished 
before  meeting  with  any  serious  resistance ;  in  short,  by  menacing 
Richmond  directly,  without  exposing  their  own  communications, 


580  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

whose  base  rested  on  the  sea,  the  Federals  would  compel  their 
adversaries  to  evacuate  Manassas  without  a  fight,  that  they  might 
hasten  to  the  assistance  of  their  capital. 

Fort  Monroe,  situated  at  a  point  which  divides  the  James  from 
the  York  River,  seemed  to  be  the  most  natural  landing-place  for 
the  Federals,  who  were  already  masters  of  it.  Nevertheless,  Gen- 
eral McClellan  had  various  reasons  for  preferring  the  village  of 
Urbanna,  on  the  right  side  of  the  Rappahannock ;  it  was  nearer 
both  to  Annapolis  and  to  Richmond ;  the  landing  could  be  effected 
with  more  speed,  and  the  campaign  by  land  occupy  less  time. 
The  Confederates  had  made  preparations  for  resistance  along  the 
peninsula  at  the  extremity  of  which  stands  Fort  Monroe;  but 
there  were  no  fortifications  between  Richmond  and  Urbanna.  The 
landing  at  the  latter  place,  however,  also  presented  some  difficul- 
ties. The  approaches  were  not  so  easy  as  those  of  Fortress  Mon- 
roe ;  once  landed,  the  army  must  turn  its  back  uj^on  the  Rappa- 
hannock and  proceed  in  the  direction  of  York  River  or  its  tribu- 
taries ;  during  this  march  a  river  very  difficult  of  access,  called 
the  Dragon  Swamp,  must  be  crossed;  it  was  also  necessary  to 
find  a  new  revictualling  point  on  York  River,  and  this  estuary 
was  closed  to  navigation  by  the  famous  stronghold  of  Yorktown, 
which  could  not  be  taken  except  by  investing  it  on  the  side  of 
Fort  Monroe.  Consequently,  whatever  was  done,  the  possession 
of  Yorktown,  which  commanded  both  York  River  and  the  penin- 
sula— called  by  pre-eminence  the  Peninsula  of  Virginia — was 
essential  in  any  campaign  undertaken  by  resting  on  the  Chesa- 
peake. From  that  moment  the  most  rational  course  was  to  begin 
by  laying  siege  to  that  place. 

Such  were  the  various  combinations  which  offered  themselves 
to  the  choice  of  General  McClelMn  in  the  month  of  February. 
It  will  be  seen  in  the  following  chapter  how  his  plans  were  frus- 
trated by  the  vacillations  of  the  executive  power. 

But  while  he  was  waiting  for  the  opportune  moment  to  take 
the  field,  he  had  prepared  an  expedition  which  was  brilliantly 
carried  out  by  one  of  his  lieutenants,  and  caused  a  fortunate  di- 
version in  the  public  mind  by  showing  for  the  third  time  what 
results  the  Federals  might  obtain  by  combining  their  land  and 
naval  forces. 


ROANOKE.  581 

The  successes  obtained  at  Hatteras  and  Hilton  Head  had  se- 
cured to  them  the  possession  of  two  important  points  on  the 
enemy's  coast,  and  had  greatly  facilitated  for  the  blockading 
squadron  the  accomplishment  of  their  task.  The  intention  was 
to  turn  these  first  successes  to  greater  account,  and  to  make  Hat- 
teras the  base  of  operations  for  a  new  expedition  more  powerful 
than  the  preceding  ones.  The  object  was  not  merely  to  occupy 
one  of  the  passes  leading  into  the  inland  sea  of  iN^orth  Carolina 
Mdiich  we  have  already  compared  with  the  lagoons  of  Venice, 
but  to  establish  the  Federal  authority  in  all  those  waters  and  in 
the  small  towns .  situated  along  their  borders.  A  twofold  ad- 
vantage was  anticipated  from  this  expedition ;  on  one  hand,  it 
^vould  be  the  means  of  destroying  root  and  branch  the  contra- 
band trade,  which,  owing  to  the  numerous  channels  and  sinuosities 
of  the  coast,  was  kept  up  in  spite  of  the  blockading  fleet  and  the 
occupation  of  the  Hatteras  passes ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  would 
keep  the  partisans  of  the  Union  in  countenance,  who  were  be- 
lieved to  be  very  numerous  in  North  Carolina,  and  detach  at 
least  a  portion  of  that  State  from  the  rebel  Confederacy. 

Annapolis  was  again  the  point  of  rew(?e;:;yoMS  for  this  expedition, 
which  was  fitted  out  with  the  utmost  care  during  the  early  part 
of  January,  1862,  It  was  composed  of  three  strong  brigades  of 
infantry,  forming  a  division  of  sixteen  thousand  men,  under  com- 
mand of  General  Buruside,  and  a  fleet  of  twenty-nine  gunboats 
or  merchant  steamers  fitted  out  for  war  purposes,  commanded  by 
Commodore  Goldsborough.  More  than  fifty  transport-ships  had 
been  assembled  for  the  embarkation  of  the  land  forces  and  their 
materiel.  The  fleet,  after  descending  the  Chesapeake,  sailed  from 
Hampton  Roads  on  the  12th  of  January.  It  was  a  great  risk  to 
send  such  a  fleet  to  sail  along  those  inhospitable  coasts  in  the 
depth  of  winter,  for  it  was  suifcring  from  the  effects  of  a  too 
hasty  preparation ;  many  of  the  vessels  were  in  a  bad  condition  ; 
some  of  the  transport-ships  were  mere  river  boats,  most  of  them 
overloaded  and  all  of  light  draught,  an  indispensable  quality  for 
getting  through  the  inlets  of  Hatteras,  but  dangerous  on  the  open 
sea.  Consequently,  when  this  numerous  squadron  was  struck  by 
one  of  those  terrible  south-easterly  storms  so  common  on  the 
American  coasts  at  that  season,  it  was  thought  that  the  fleet  was 


582  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

about  to  meet  the  fate  of  the  great  Armada.  It  got  through,  how- 
ever, with  considerable  damage,  and  only  lost  two  small  vessels, 
which  were  driven  ashore  on  the  coast.  All  the  rest  of  the  fleet 
rallied  in  a  few  days  in  sight  of  the  Hatteras  lighthouse,  the 
point  designated  as  their  rendezvous.  But  there  were  fresh  dan- 
gers in  store :  the  storm  prevented  the  large  transport-ships  from 
venturing  among  the  difficult  passes  of  Hatteras,  and  for  more 
than  a  week  they  were  exposed,  with  their  precious  human  cargo, 
to  all  the  violence  of  the  wind  and  sea.  Thanks  to  the  untiring 
zeal  of  the  navy,  the  disaster  which  had  seemed  imminent  was 
avoided,  and  on  the  24th  of  January  the  whole  fleet,  favored  by 
an  extraordinary  tide,  raised  by  the  end  of  the  gale  entered 
the.  calmer  waters  of  Pamlico  Sound.  The  first  object  of  the 
expedition  was  to  take  possession  of  Roanoke  Island,  situated  at 
sixty  kilometres  to  the  north,  which,  as  we  have  already  men- 
tioned, commands  the  entrance  of  Albemarle  Sound.  It  required 
some  time,  however,  for  the  fleet  to  repair  its  damages,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  5th  of  February  that  it  was  enabled  to  put  itself 
in  motion.  The  sixty-five  vessels  of  all  kinds  of  which  it  was 
composed  formed  a  column  of  more  than  two  miles  in  length, 
which,  as  it  followed  the  devious  course  of  the  only  practicable 
channel,  described  some  curious  gyrations  upon  the  glassy  surface 
of  the  waters.  Nothing  could  be  seen  from  the  low  and  humid 
beach  of  North  Carolina  but  the  large  forests  of  pine  which  pro- 
duce turpentine,  whose  trunks,  enveloped  by  the  mirage,  seemed 
to  be  looming  up  from  the  sea. 

An  altogether  novel  experiment  on  this  continent  Avas  about  to 
be  tried — the  use  of  modern  improvements  for  landing  the  whole 
of  a  small  army  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy ;  for  on  this  occa- 
sion it  was  not  intended  that  the  naval  forces  should  bear  all  the 
brunt  of  the  battle,  as  they  had  done  at  Hatteras  and  Hilton 
Head.  Nothing  had  been  neglected  to  secure  the  prompt  execu- 
tion of  this  delicate  operation. 

The  troops  are  embarked  with  their  matenel,  partly  upon 
steamers  of  light  draught,  partly  upon  lighters  towed  by  them. 
The  transports  preserve  the  order  of  march  of  the  troops  they 
carry.  They  follow  each  other  by  brigades  ;  each  brigade  di- 
vided into  th'^ee  columns,  which  pursue  a  parallel  course,  or  follow 


ROANOKE.  583 

each  other  according  to  the  nature  of  the  ground,  is  led  by  the 
vessel  that  has  hoisted  the  flag  of  its  general  at  the  mizzenraast, 
whence  that  officer  directs  the  movements  of  the  train.  The  ffun- 
boats  take  the  lead ;  the  smaller  vessels  of  war,  carrying  one  or 
two  guns,  guard  the  flanks ;  and  when  night  compels  the  fleet  to 
cast  anchor,  they  perform  the  duties  of  outposts.  Burnside  and 
Goldsborough,  stationed  on  board  a  light  steamer  of  great  speed, 
pass  along  the  whole  line.  Particular  instructions  have  been 
issued  regarding  the  manner  of  manning  and  loading  the  launches 
and  the  position  that  each  is  to  occupy  when  the  signal  for  land- 
ing shall  be  given. 

But  if  the  Federals  were  well  prepared,  they  could  not  flatter 
themselves  with  the  idea  of  taking  the  enemy  by  surprise.  In 
fact,  since  the  arrival  of  the  fleet  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Hatteras 
lighthouse,  the  Confederates  had  had  more  than  three  weeks  to 
prepare  for  the  defence  of  the  island  of  Roanoke,  which  was  the 
evident  aim  of  the  expedition.  The  Croatan  channel,  west  of  the 
island,  which  is  the  only  practicable  one,  had  been  obstructed  by 
the  submersion  of  old  hulls  fastened  together  with  piles.  Strong 
batteries,  constructed  of  earth  and  sand,  occupied  the  extremities 
of  this  stockade  on  both  sides.  Advantage  had  been  taken  of  a 
winding  formed  by  a  re-entering  in  the  island  shore  to  erect  other 
batteries  in  the  rear  for  cannonading  any  vessel  that  should  at- 
tempt to  pass  through  the  channel.  Abreast  of  the  stockade,  the 
island,  long  and  narrow,  was  shut  in  between  two  swampy  bays, 
which  rendered  its  defence  easy;  for  the  Union  troops,  after 
landing  on  the  southern  part  of  the  island,  which  the  Confeder- 
ates had  no  intention  of  disputing,  were  obliged  to  pass  between 
these  two  bays  in  order  to  reach  the  forts  which  commanded  the 
Croatan  channel.  A  fortification,  surrounded  by  abatis,  had  been 
erected  on  the  only  road  that  ran  across  this  isthmus,  and  the  three 
guns  with  which  it  was  mounted  commanded  all  its  approaches 
at  short  range.  These  positions  were  guarded  by  five  or  six 
thousand  men,  part  of  whom  were  quartered  on  the  island.  Wise's 
Virginia  Legion  was  encamped  on  a  sand-bank  which  separates 
the  inland  sea  from  the  Atlantic.  A  small  fleet  of  seven  gua- 
boats,  that  had  been  morchant  steamers,  the  armament  of  which 


584  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

had  been  hastily  improvised,  Avas  assembled  behind  the  stockade^ 
under  the  command  of  Commodore  Lynch. 

On  the  4th  of  February  the  whole  expedition  entered  the  nar- 
row passes  of  the  Croatan  channel ;  and  Golclsborough,  leaving 
behind  him  the  transport-ships,  ready  to  effect  a  landing  on  some 
quiet  spot,  advanced  against  the  enemy's  batteries  at  the  head  of 
his  gun-boats.  An  engagement  at  once  commenced  with  Lynch's 
fleet  and  a  fortified  work  called  Fort  Bartow,  situated  on  Roan- 
oke Island,  at  the  point  where  the  extremity  of  the  stockade 
rested.  The  other  redoubts  had  been  constructed  to  cover  the 
middle  of  the  channel ;  but  their  embrasures  being  too  narrow, 
Goldsborough  was  able  to  avoid  an  enfilading  fire  by  hugging 
the  Roanoke  coast.  The  cannonading  was  brisk,  but  the  losses 
were  but  few  on  either  side.  The  fleet,  however,  had  a  decided 
advantage,  and  accomplished  the  double  object  it  had  proposed  to 
itself.  The  strongest  of  the  Confederate  ships,  the  Curlew,  was 
sunk  by  one  of  those  large  hundred-pound  shells  which  were  so 
destructive  to  wooden  vessels.  Another  was  disabled ;  and  Lynch, 
fearing  to  lose  the  rest,  disappeared  during  the  night,  leaving  the 
defenders  of  Roanoke  to  their  own  resources.  The  latter  had 
been  entirely  absorbed  by  the  bombardment  of  the  fleet.  Fort 
Bartow,  enveloped  in  the  burning  of  its  barracks,  had  kept  up . 
the  fight  with  difficulty ;  while  some  ten  thousand  men,  favored 
by  this  diversion,  landed  during  the  night  in  a  solitary  creek  of 
Roanoke  Island.  The  operation  had  been  conducted  with  great 
method  and  speed,  demonstrating  the  special  fitness  of  the  Amer- 
icans for  this  kind  of  enterprises. 

The  next  morning,  February  8th,  the  troops  started  for  the 
redoubt  situated  in  the  centre  of  the  narrowest  part  of  the  island. 
Burnside's  three  brigades,  although  without  their  full  comple- 
ment, were  all  represented  in  the  body  of  troops  just  landed. 
Having  reached,  by  the  only  practicable  road  in  the  place,  the 
edge  of  a  clearing  which  widens  to  the  right  and  left,  and  is 
bounded  on  both  sides  by  deep  swamps,  the  Federals  perceive  at 
the  other  extremity  the  enemy's  battery,  which  immediately  opens 
fire  upon  them.  Some  howitzers,  served  by  sailors,  I'eply  to  it, 
while  Foster's  brigade  deploys  along  the  skirt  of  the  wood  near 
the  road.     The  other  two  brigades  form  also,  Reno  to  the  left 


ROANOKE.  585 

and  Parke  to  the  right,  but  the  character  of  the  ground  does  not 
allow  them  to  place  more  than  their  heads  of  column  in  line. 
The  firing  of  musketry  commences.  The  Fedei'als,  huddled  to- 
gether within  a  narrow  and  exposed  space,  suffer  greatly.  They 
return  the  fire,  but  in  doing  so  they  shelter  themselves  behind  the 
trees  or  among  some  breaks  in  the  ground,  instead  of  charging 
the  enemy.  The  latter,  believing  his  flanks  Avell  protected  by 
the  swamps,  concentrates  all  his  fire  upon  the  clearing,  into  which 
nobody  dares  to  venture. 

In  the  mean  while,  Reno  and  Parke,  unable  to  charge  the  en- 
emy in  front,  try  a  double  flank  movement  across  these  swamps, 
where  they  hope  to  find  a  passage.  On  the  right,  Parke  is 
stopped  by  an  impenetrable  thicket,  but  his  soldiers,  once  in  mo- 
tion, precipitate  themselves  into  the  clearing  and  continue  to  ad- 
vance against  the  enemy.  The  Ninth  New  York,  being  the  most 
exposed,  as  it  forms  the  left  of  the  brigade,  rushes  to  the  charge 
in  obedience  to  the  call  of  its  officers,  and  approaches  the  enemy's 
guns.  At  the  same  instant,  Reno's  column,  having  overcome  the 
obstacle  the  enemy  had  relied  upon  as  a  protection,  bursts  sud- 
denly upon  the  right  flank  of  the  Confederates.  A  few  volleys 
then  suffice  to  put  the  defenders  of  the  work  to  flight.  This 
combat  cost  the  Federals  thirty-five  killed  and  two  hundred 
wounded.  Among  the  former  there  were  many  superior  officers, 
who  had  exposed  themselves  personally  to  encourage  their  soldiers, 
as  yet  unused  to  the  ordeal  of  fire — among  them  a  Frenchman, 
Colonel  V.  de  Monteil.  He  was  present  in  the  fight  as  a  volun- 
teer, his  regiment  not  having  been  engaged;  hanging  his  coat 
upon  a  tree,  he  had  seized  a  rifle,  which  he  used  as  a  common 
soldier.  When  the  Ninth  New  York  charged  the  enemy's  works, 
he  joined  that  regiment,  and  was  killed  at  its  head,  worthily  sus- 
taining the  honor  of  his  country. 

The  Confederate  forces  held  in  reserve  in  the  rear  of  the 
redoubt  numbered  about  two  thousand  or  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred men,  including  a  portion  of  Wise's  legion.  Seeing  that  this 
work  had  been  turned,  they  fled  and  ran  across  the  Avoods  towards 
the  shore,  in  hopes  of  being  able  to  get  on  board  some  vessel; 
but  only  a  small  number  of  fugitives  succeeded  in  doing  so. 
Although  scarcely  one-third  of  these  soldiers  had  been  under  fire, 


586  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  whole  force  surrendered  without  the  slightest  attempt  at  re- 
sistance. The  island  of  Roanoke,  the  key  of  the  inland  sea,  with 
all  its  works,  together  with  about  twenty  cannon  and  more  than 
two  thousand  prisoners,  fell  into  the  hands  of  Burnside.  The 
fruits  of  this  victory  were  promptly  and  easily  gathered.  Two 
days  after,  Elizabeth  City,  the  most  important  town  in  that  part 
of  the  country,  with  the  abandoned  hulls  of  Lynch's  fleet,  fell 
into  the  power  of  the  Federal  navy  after  a  brief  engagement.  In 
a  few  days  the  latter  acquired  absolute  control  of  the  whole  coast 
of  Albemarle  Sound  and  the  mouth  of  the  principal  rivers  which 
empty  into  it. 

Burnside  then  directed  his  attention  to  the  city  of  Newberne, 
seated  on  the  borders  of  the  Neuse,  toward  the  south  of  the  in- 
land sea.  Following  the  course  of  this  navigable  river  is  a  rail- 
way which  runs  from  Raleigh  and  Goldsborough  to  Newberne, 
touching  the  Atlantic  at  Beaufort,  near  one  of  the  passes  which 
fall  into  the  ocean  from  the  inland  sea.  This  double  line  of  com- 
munication gave  considerable  importance  to  Newberne,  and  it 
was  then  thought  that  it  might  be  made  the  base  of  operations  in 
a  campaign  directed  against  the  network  of  railways  in  North 
Carolina.  This  campaign  was  in  fact  undertaken,  and  Newberne 
played  an  important  part  in  it ;  but  the  first  attempt  was  only 
made  the  following  year,  to  be  again  renewed  three  years  later, 
during  the  closing  hours  of  the  war. 

The  Federal  fleet  left  Hatteras  on  the  12th  of  March,  and  on 
the  day  following,  the  transport-ships  landed  Burnside's  three 
brio-ades  in  one  of  the  creeks  of  the  estuary  of  the  Neuse,  situated 
near  the  Newberne  and  Beaufort  road,  about  twenty-eight  kilo- 
metres from  each  of  those  towns.  A  battery  of  naval  howitzers, 
served  and  drawn  by  sailors,  still  accompanied  the  little  army. 
The  spongy  ground  on  that  alluvial  coast  greatly  impeded  the 
progress  of  the  Federals,  who,  as  soon  as  landed,  proceeded  to- 
wards Newberne,  following  the  right  bank  of  the  Neuse.  The 
artillery  was  dragged  along  with  the  utmost  difiiculty,  the  supe- 
rior officers,  almost  all  on  foot,  with  the  mud  up  to  their  knees, 
setting  an  example  to  their  soldiers. 

Night  obliged  them  to  bivouac  before  they  had  met  the  enemy. 
They  had  travelled  about  sixteen  miles  and  crossed  many  lines 


ROANOKE.  587 

of  entrenchments,  abandoned  on  their  approach.  The  Confed- 
erates, numbering  about  five  or  six  thousand,  were  waiting  for 
them  nearer  Newberne,  inside  of  better  constructed  works,  mount- 
ing a  large  number  of  heavy  guns,  which,  placed  across  the  rail- 
way, rested  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river;  these  works  extended 
to  a  distance  of  more  than  four  kilometres,  but  could  only  be  ap- 
proached at  certain  points,  in  consequence  of  impassable  swamps. 
The  principal  defences  of  this  line  were  along  the  edge  of  the 
river — a  hexagonal,  covered  work  mounting  thirteen  guns,  and 
a  large  redoubt  of  an  irregular  form,  partly  constructed  in  the 
railroad  embankment,  with  a  strong  redan  between  the  two, — the 
whole  being  connected  by  breastworks  built  of  wood  and  earth, 
protected  by  strong  abattis.  To  the  right  of  the  railroad,  the  line, 
running  back  across  a  country  full  of  ravines,  was  continued  by 
a  succession  of  thirteen  small  redans,  placed  along  the  ridges 
which  intersected  it  perpendicularly.  To  the  left  of  the  covered 
work  it  was  prolonged  by  a  kind  of  stockade,  intended  to  block 
the  passage  of  the  Xeuse  to  the  Federal  fleet.  This  obstacle  con- 
sisted of  schooners  sunk  in  the  river,  with  the  masts  projecting 
obliquely,  according  to  the  current  of  the  water,  the  tops  of  which 
were  either  pointed  with  iron  or  surmounted  by  a  shell  ready  to 
explode  as  soon  as  brought  into  contact  with  any  hard  substance. 
The  Confederate  artillery  at  this  point  consisted  of  forty-six  guns 
of  large  calibre  and  a  great  number  of  field-pieces. 

The  Federals  appeared  before  these  Avorks  on  the  morning  of 
the  14tli  of  March,  when,  deploying  along  the  edge  of  the  woods 
w^hich  had  concealed  them  until  then  from  the  enemy,  the  fight- 
ing at  once  commenced  along  the  whole  line.  The  firing  thus 
continued  for  more  than  two  hours  without  results.  The  assail- 
ants, being  obliged  to  uncover  themselves,  and  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  a  numerous  artillery,  sustained  more  loss  than  their  adver- 
saries. The  naval  howitzers  kept  up  the  unequal  fight  with  diffi- 
culty, and  those  Avho  served  them  had  to  be  constantly  replaced, 
while  the  Confederates  fought  from  behind  their  parapets  with 
scarcely  any  risk.  But  the  recollection  of  the  victory  of  Roanoke 
imparted  to  the  Federals  that  assurance  which  is  a  great  element 
of  success;  they  knew  that  a  battery  could  be  taken  by  storm; 
they   had  already  seen   the    Carolinians   abandon   works    which 


588  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

seemed  formidable,  and  experience  was  beginning  to  teach  tliem 
that  it  is  less  dangerous  to  rush  uj)on  the  enemy  than  to  remain 
immovable  under  his  fire;  consequently,  they  did  not  wait  for  a 
signal  from  their  chiefs  to  charge  the  Confederate  works.  One 
regiment  gets  over  the  parapet  first ;  it  is  not  well  supported,  and 
is  soon  repulsed ;  but  immediately  after,  the  Fourth  Rhode  Island 
penetrates  into  the  railroad  redoubt,  followed  by  the  whole  of 
Parke's  brigade.  On  the  right,  Foster's  brigade,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  enemy's'  confusion,  carries  the  central  redan,  and  soon 
after,  being  supported  by  the  rest  of  the  army,  takes  possession 
of  the  small  works  which  covered  the  right  of  the  Confederates. 
The  latter  fled  in  disorder  towards  Newberne,  leaving  two  hun- 
dred prisoners  and  sixty-four  guns  (eighteen  of  which  were  field- 
pieces)  in  the  works  they  had  so  poorly  defended.  This  brilliant 
and  decisive  success  cost  the  Federals  ninety-one  killed  and  four 
hundred  and  sixty-six  wounded.  Their  losses  would  probably 
have  been  less  if  they  had  determined  sooner  to  make  a  vigorous 
attack. 

Burnside  arrived  in  time  to  stop  the  fire  which  the  Confederates 
had  lighted  in  Newberne  on  retreating  towards  Goldsborough. 
At  Newberne  he  joined  the  fleet,  which  had  so  skilfully  and  suc- 
cessfully overcome  the  obstacles  placed  on  its  route,  and  took  pos- 
session of  large  depots  which  the  Confederate  army  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  replace. 

Commanding  the  mouths  of  the  Neuse,  he  was  able  to  menace 
the  most  important  railway  lines  of  North  Carolina,  cutting  off, 
at  the  same  time,  all  communication  with  the  port  of  Beaufort ; 
this  place,  Avliich  was  of  great  use  to  the  contraband  trade  the 
Southern  States  were  carrying  on  with  England,  was  occupied  on 
the  25th  of  March.  Moorehead  City,  situated  opposite,  and 
Washington,  on  Tar  River,  had  already  been  similarly  occupied 
a  few  days  before. 

But  the  Beaufort  inlets  were  commanded  by  an  old  Federal 
fort  contemporary  with  Fort  Warren,  Fort  Monroe,  and  all  the 
casemated  works  constructed  on  the  American  coast  on  the  plans 
of  General  Bernard ;  tliis  was  Fort  Macon,  situated  at  the  ex- 
tremity of  a  long  sand-bank  similar  to  that  of  Hatteras.  It  was 
occupied  by  rebel  troops,  and  could  only  be  reduced  by  a  regular 


ROANOKE.  589 

siege.  More  than  fifteen  days  were  consumed  in  preparing  for 
this  operation,  which  did  not  commence  until  the  lltli  of  April. 
Besides,  owing  to  the  nature  of  the  ground,  a  few  regiments  were 
sufficient  to  invest  it.  The  rest  of  the  troops  were  occupied,  for  the 
most  part,  in  serving  as  garrisons,  small  but  numerous.  Reno's 
brigade,  being  available,  was  sent  by  Burnside  to  land  at  Eliza- 
beth City,  on  the  north,  whence  it  was  to  make  a  demonstration 
against  Norforlk  which  should  prevent  the  enemy  from  attempt- 
ing a  diversion  to  save  Fort  Macon.  On  the  19th  of  April  Reno 
met  a  small  body  of  Confederate  troops,  accompanied  by  a  few 
guns,  at  South  Mills.  He  attacked  it,  and  after  a  brisk  engage- 
ment, during  which  he  lost  fifteen  killed  and  ninety-eight 
wounded,  compelled  it  to  retreat.  He  liimself  re-embarked  on 
the  following  day. 

Washed  on  three  sides  by  the  sea,  Fort  Macon  was  only  ap- 
proachable by  the  narrow  strip  of  land  the  extremity  of  which  it 
occupied.  It  was  a  polygonal  work  of  masonry,  surrounded  by 
a  ditch  and  a  glacis,  having  one  casemated  battery  and  one  en 
barbette.  When  the  government  of  North  Carolina  took  posses- 
sion of  it  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  it  was  only  occu- 
pied by  a  single  non-commissioned  officer  of  the  regular  army. 
The  Confederates  had  entrusted  its  defence  to  five  companies, 
numbering  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  men. 

On  the  25th  of  April,  in  spite  of  the  fire  of  the  fort,  which  did 
them  but  little  harm,  the  besiegers  had  erected  their  batteries  at  a 
distance  of  a  few  hundred  metres  from  the  walls  ;  eight  ten-inch 
mortars  and  three  Parrott  guns  (hundred-pounders)  opened  fire ; 
and  in  ten  hours  seventeen  of  the  enemy's  guns  were  dismounted, 
including  all  those  that  were  serviceable.  Out  of  eleven  hun- 
dred projectiles,  five  hundred  and  sixty  had  reached  the  fort ;  the 
embrasures  were  destroyed  and  the  magazines  riddled.  The  gar- 
rison capitulated  the  next  day ;  it  had  eight  men  killed  and 
twenty  wounded. 

The  capture  of  Fort  Macon  gave  the  Federals  the  best  access 
to  the  inland  sea,  and  completed  the  land  blockade  of  all  that 
part  of  the  coast.  Fort  Pulaski,  in  Georgia,  had  been  reduced 
a  fortnight  before ;  and  as  the  operations  which  caused  its  fall 
were  on  a  much  larger  scale,  we  propose  to  relate  them  in  detail 


590  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

hereafter,  iu  order  to  show  the  first  efforts  of  the  Americans  in 
sieges. 

The  object  of  Burnside's  expedition  was  accomplished.  The 
results  achieved,  in  a  military  point  of  view,  were  considerable ; 
those  of  a  political  character  did  not  answer  the  expectations  of 
the  Federal  government.  Not  that  North  Carolina  was  as  ar- 
dently devoted  to  the  Confederate  cause  as  her  southern  sister, 
for  in  reality  she  did  not  care  much  for  either  party,  but  that, 
while  a  large  number  of  her  inhabitants  would  have  liked  to  wait 
for  the  issue  of  the  struggle  to  declare  their  preferences,  those  even 
who  at  heart  had  remained  loyal  to  the  flag  of  the  Union  were  too 
much  afraid  of  a  turn  of  fortune  to  avow  their  sentiments  openly. 
To  go  in  search  of  new  successes  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
penetrate  into  the  interior  of  the  land.  A  large  army,  and  not  a 
single  division,  would  be  necessary  for  such  a  task.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  fifteen  thousand  or  sixteen  thousand  men  composing 
Burnside's  division  were  not  required  to  guard  this  new  conquest. 
In  leaving  those  troops  as  garrisons  of  the  inland  sea  the  Wash- 
ington government  committed  a  serious  mistake,  for,  scattered 
along  those  sterile  coasts,  they  were  useless  to  their  cause  at  a 
time  when  they  might  have  rendered  valuable  services  in  the  cam- 
paign of  which  the  peninsula  of  Virginia  was  about  to  become 
the  theatre.  One  might  even  criticise  the  plan  of  the  expedition, 
which  had  deprived  the  army  of  the  Potomac  of  a  strong  divis- 
ion on  the  eve  of  a  decisive  struggle ;  the  diversion,  however,  was 
justified  by  the  success  that  attended  it;  but  this  success  should 
at  least  have  been  taken  advantage  of  to  bring  Burnside  back 
promptly  to  other  battle-fields.  Plaving  once  obtained  the  most 
considerable  results,  his  protracted  absence  was  a  fatal  and  inex- 
cusable error. 


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CHAPTER    IV. 

HAMPTON  ROADS. 

BURNSIDE'S  expedition  was  but  an  episode  quite  secondary 
as  compared  with  the  great  struggle  that  was  about  to  take 
place  between  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  that  of  Northern 
Virginia  in  the  early  part  of  April.  This  struggle  opens  the 
second  year  of  the  war,  counting  from  the  14th  of  April,  1862, 
the  first  anniversary  of  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter.  Be- 
fore closing  the  narrative  of  the  first  year  with  this  volume,  we 
must  show  what  had  been  the  preparations  for  this  campaign,  and 
go  back  to  the  beginning  of  1862  to  speak  of  the  different  events 
that  occurred  during  this  period  of  comparative  rest  to  both 
armies,  which  had  such  an  important  bearing  on  their  destinies. 

Among  these  events  there  is  one  which  it  behooves  us  to  men- 
tion in  this  place,  as  being  intimately  connected  with  the  history 
of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  although,  from  its  peculiar  import- 
ance, it  is  proper  to  separate  it  in  our  recital  from  the  simple  mil- 
itary incidents  that  filled  up  the  first  months  of  that  year.  It 
was  indeed  productive  of  much  more  lasting  effects,  and  caused 
in  Europe  as  well  as  in  America  a  far  greater  sensation  than  a 
bloody  battle.  We  allude  to  the  naval  combat  of  which  the  har- 
bor of  Hampton  Roads  was  the  theatre  on  the  8th  and  9th  of 
March,  1862,  and  which  marks  the  greatest  and  most  sudden  of 
all  the  revolutions  that  have  been  effected  in  the  science  of  mari- 
time warfare. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  enumerate  all  the  studies  that  had 
been  made  within  the  last  few  years  by  naval  constructors  of 
different  nations  to  protect  war-vessels  by  means  of  iron  armor 
from  the  terrible  effects  of  hollow  projectiles  fired  horizontally. 
As  we  have  before  stated,  these  studies  had  not  as  yet  produced, 
up  to  1861,  any  experiment  which  could  be  considered  decisive. 

591 


692  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

The  floating-batteries  which  had  been  used  in  the  attack  upon 
Kilburn  were  condemned  as  incapable  of  exact  steering.  Thanks 
to  M.  Dupuy  de  Lome,  France  had  the  honor  of  possessing  the 
first  real  war-vessel  Avith  iron-plated  sides;  but  the  Gloire,  in 
1861,  had  not  accomplished  anything  beyond  simple  efforts  at 
navigation.  In  England  the  Warrior  was  not  launched  until  the 
close  of  that  same  year.  Among  the  inventions  of  all  kinds 
elicited  by  the  new  problem  proposed  to  naval  architecture,  there 
was  one  which,  although  still  confined  to  the  sphere  of  models, 
nevertheless  already  attracted  the  attention  of  the  most  competent 
men.  The  honor  of  this  invention  is  shared  between  Captain 
Cowper  Coles,  a  man  of  fertile  resources  and  daring  enterprise, 
who  was  doomed  to  perish  in  so  unfortunate  a  manner  with  the 
vessel  he  had  looked  upon  as  his  master-piece,  and  the  Swede  Erics- 
son, who  had  long  been  a  naturalized  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
where  he  had  already  become  celebrated  for  his  construction  of 
the  Princeton,  the  first  war-ship  provided  with  a  screw-propeller, 
and  by  important  improvements  in  steam  machinery.  This  inven- 
tion, now  familiar  to  everybody,  is  that  of  vessels  with  revolving 
turrets,  which  Ericsson  had  submitted  to  the  French  government 
as  early  as  1854,  during  the  siege  of  Sebastopol.  He  was  aware 
that,  in  order  to  solve  so  novel  a  problem,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  discard  all  traditions  regarding  naval  architecture,  to  aban- 
don the  system  of  high-decked  ships,  as  the  engineers  of  the 
sixteenth  century  had  given  up  the  castellated  forts  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  for  the  low  profiles  of  modern  fortifications ;  then  the 
necessity  of  encasing  the  sides  of  vessels  with  heavy  iron  armor 
introduced  a  complete  change  in  the  conditions  of  the  equilibrium 
which  establish  their  water-line.  This  armor,  in  order  to  afford 
efficient  protection,  had  to  be  of  such  thickness  that  it  greatly  over- 
weighted vessels  of  moderate  size  ;  and  in  order  to  reduce  the  pro- 
portional relations  between  the  weight  of  the  armor  and  that  of  the 
volume  of  water  displaced  by  the  hull  to  a  figure  compatible  with 
the  essential  conditions  of  navigation,  it  was  necessary  to  build 
vessels  of  enormous  tonnage.  The  Warrior  was  then  the  type 
of  such  vessels,  to  which  European  navies  have  persistently  ad- 
hered, notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  increasing  thickness  which 
it  has  been  found  indispensable  to  impart  to  their  sheathing  no 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  593 

longer  admits  of  protecting  every  part  effectively.  Ericsson,  on 
the  contrary,  sought  to  solve  the  j)roblem  by  reducini^,  so  far  as 
it  could  be  done,  the  surfaces  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy, 
and  presenting  them  under  an  angle  which  gave  them  the  great- 
est possible  capacity  of  resistance.  Pie  discarded  the  system  of 
vertical  sides,  concentrated  the  guns  upon  the  axis  of  the  ship, 
and  placed  them  inside  of  one  or  more  turrets.  He  was  thus 
enabled  to  increase  both  the  calibre  of  the  guns  and  the  thickne&s 
of  the  sheathing  which  sheltered  them,  without  overloading  the 
hull.  "While  the  curved  faces  of  the  turrets  presented  but  one 
mathematical  line  where  a  cannon  ball  could  strike  them  normal 
to  the  surface,  the  deck,  lowered  nearly  to  a  level  with  the  water, 
could  not  be  reached  by  projectiles  except  under  an  extremely 
sharp  angle.  The  turret,  supported  at  once  upon  rollers  placed 
under  the  base  and  by  a  central  axis  put  in  motion  by  a  cog-wheel, 
turned  easily  with  the  two  guns  it  contained.  They  could  thus 
point  in  every  direction,  and  a  prismatic  glass  permitted  this  to 
be  done  without  opening  the  port-holes.  Thus  the  ship  projected 
by  Ericsson  could  easily  be  constructed,  and  at  a  moderate  expense  ; 
in  case  of  a  reverse,  but  few  lives  were  exposed,  as  it  only  presented 
a  small  number  of  surfaces  to  the  enemy ;  with  the  whole  hori- 
zon as  the  range  of  shot  for  each  of  the  guns  she  carried  ;  in 
short,  this  vessel  combined  the  double  advantage  of  being  encased 
in  a  thicker  armor  and  of  carrying  more  powerful  guns  than  the 
largest  high-decked  vessels.  It  is  true  that  her  flat  bottom  and 
slight  elevation  would  not  permit  her  to  make  long  voyages  on 
the  high  sea ;  and  Captain  Coles  had  intended  to  remedy  this 
difficulty  by  proposing  a  ship  with  a  keel,  whose  inclined  sides 
should  be  surmounted  by  the  turrets.  But  we  believe  that 
Ericsson  was  right  in  designing  iron-clad  vessels  exclusively 
for  the  coast  service.  He  saw,  what  experience  will  demonstrate 
more  and  more  conclusively,  that  a  mixed  vessel,  built  to  carry 
an  armor  and  at  the  same  time  to  undertake  long  voyages,  will 
always  be  less  powerful  in  a  fight  than  the  coasting- vessels  she 
will  find  at  the  entrance  of  the  enemy's  ports,  and  less  buoyant 
on  the  waters  than  the  wooden  or  plated  vessels  that  will  elude 
her  to  scour  the  seas. 

"When  the  civil  war  broke  out,  it  was  as  easy  for  both  parties 

Vol.  I.— 38 


594  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

to  foresee  the  great  part  reserved  for  iroa-clad  vessels  as  it  was 
difficult  to  make  a  definite  choice  among  the  opposite  systems, 
none  of  which  had  as  yet  received  the  sanction  of  experience.  It 
was  important,  in  the  first  place,  that  their  construction  should  be 
rapid  and  easy.  There  were  no  American  establishments  at  that 
time  able  to  build  vessels  that  could  compare  with  those  of  France 
and  England.  Workmen  and  materials  were  wanting  in  the 
dock-yards  of  the  South,  time  was  lacking  in  those  of  the  North, 
occupied  with  more  pressing  labors.  Consequently,  the  first  rudely- 
constructed  iron-clads  which  figured  in  the  war  before  the  end  of 
1861  met  with  but  little  success.  We  have  seen  how  Hollins 
could  attempt  nothing  serious  with  the  Manassas  at  New  Orleans, 
and  that  Foote's  gun-boats  were  not  protected  by  their  armor 
against  the  plunging  fire  of  Fort  Donelson. 

In  the  mean  while,  more  formidable  adversaries  were  prepar- 
ing on  both  sides  to  enter  the  lists.  As  early  as  the  month  of 
July,  1861,  the  Federal  Secretary  of  War  had  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  examine  all  the  plans  that  had  been  submitted  to  him 
for  building  iron-clads.  A  few  months  after,  this  committee  rec- 
ommended the  construction  of  three  vessels,  expressing,  at  the 
same  time,  very  serious  doubts  as  to  the  advantage  to  be  derived 
from  them.  The  first  two,  with  bulwarks,  named  respectively 
the  Galena  and  Ironsides,  played  but  an  insignificant  part  during 
the  Avar ;  the  third  was  Mr.  Ericsson's.  The  Swedish  engineer 
engaged  to  construct,  in  less  than  four  months,  and  at  a  cost  of 
two  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  a  vessel  of  nine 
hundred  tons,  forty  metres  in  length,  eleven  in  width,  whose  deck, 
covered  with  iron  plates  of  fourteen  centimetres  in  thickness, 
should  jut  out  beyond  the  hull  to  protect  it,  drawing  three  metres 
twenty  centimetres  of  water,  and  carrying  a  single  turret,  tlu'ee 
metres  in  height  and  six  metres  fifty  centimetres  interior  diameter, 
formed  of  plates  laid  upon  each  other,  the  entire  thickness  being 
eighteen  centimetres.  This  vessel  was  to  carry  two  Dahlgren 
guns  of  thirty  centimetres  calibre.  Entrusting  the  execution  of 
his  work  to  three  diiferent  private  establishments,  Ericsson  set 
to  work  to  superintend  the  details  with  ardent  solicitude,  foresee- 
ing the  services  his  invention  might  render  to  his  adopted  country. 
The  prospect  of  a  war  with  England  arising  out  of  the  Trent 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  595 

affair  contributed  to  hasten  the  completion  of  the  Monitor.  It  was 
by  this  name  that  Ericsson's  vessel  became  famous.  At  the  time 
it  seemed  especially  intended  for  the  protection  of  the  port  of  New 
York  against  British  squadrons.  On  the  30th  of  January,  after 
three  months'  work,  she  was  launched  in  the  presence  of  a  curious 
and  incredulous  crowd,  that  flocked  to  see  if  the  strange  machine 
would  not  sink  in  the  water  under  the  weight  of  her  armor.  It 
required  four  weeks  more  to  complete  her  interior  arrangements. 

The  Confederate  government  did  not  lag  behind  its  adver- 
saries. Even  if  it  had  been  able  to  command  the  services  of 
an  Ericsson,  it  did  not  possess,  as  we  have  stated,  the  necessary 
workshops  for  building  a  Blonitor,  and  it  saw  at  once  that  it  must 
limit  itself  to  making  the  most  of  the  vessels  in  its  possession.  A 
distinguished  officer,  late  of  the  Federal  navy.  Captain  Brooke, 
had  proposed  to  the  government  the  construction  of  a  vessel  with 
inclined  sides.  He  borrowed  one-half  of  Cowper  Coles's  plan, 
while  the  Federals  made  use  of  the  other  half.  At  the  end  of 
June,  1861,  he  was  directed  to  modify  the  hull  of  the  3Terrimac 
in  accordance  with  this  plan.  The  reader  will  recollect  that  this 
fine  frigate,  which  was  partially  burned,  had  been  sunk  in  the 
port  of  Norfolk  at  the  moment  the  Confederates  took  possession 
of  it.  After  many  efforts  she  was  finally  raised,  and  her  ma- 
chinery put  in  order.  The  lower  part  of  the  hull  was  uninjured, 
and  was  razeed  one  metre  below  the  water-line;  she  measured 
sixty  metres  in  length  and  nineteen  in  width.  A  kind  of  large 
casemate  was  constructed  upon  her  new  deck,  which  was  of  great 
strength,  in  the  form  of  a  roof  with  a  flat  top,  presenting  at  both 
stern  and  bow  two  inclined  faces,  each  sheltering  two  heavy  guns. 
Eight  port-holes  were  opened  in  the  sides  of  the  casemate,  which 
formed  an  angle  of  only  thirty-five  degrees  with  the  decks.  Rail- 
road iron,  passed  through  the  plate-rolls  at  the  Tredegar  iron- 
works, near  Richmond,  were  formed  into  long  plates  sixteen 
centimetres  broad,  some  forty  and  some  sixty-eight  millimetres 
in  thickness.  Her  bow  was  armed  with  a  steel  beak,  the  govern- 
ment being  unable  to  procure  the  construction  of  such  a  machine 
in  iron.  The  sides  were  strengthened  by  large  beams  to  protect 
them  against  any  concussion.  Vast  compartments  had  been  intro- 
duced at  both  ends,  where  it  was  sufficient  to  let  in  the  water  to 


596  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

submerge  tlie  vessel  up  to  the  line  of  the  casemates.  Finally,  the 
armament  of  the  side  batteries  was  composed  of  eight  Dahlgren 
howitzers  of  twenty-four  centimetres  calibre ;  and  four  rifled  guns 
of  nineteen  centimetres  calibre  were  placed  at  both  stern  and 
prow.  These  pieces,  constructed  by  Captain  Brooke,  as  we  have 
said  elsewhere,  on  the  Parrott  plan,  carried  a  ball  of  nearly  fifty 
kilogrammes  in  weight. 

We  shall  be  excused  for  having  entered  into  these  details  re- 
garding the  construction  "of  two  vessels  destined  to  make  the  first 
trial  of  two  systems  so  entirely  new,  and  in  so  singular  a  combat. 
By  an  extraordinary  coincidence,  they  were  both  ready  on  the 
same  day ;  their  armament  was  completed  on  the  5th  of  March, 
one  at  Norfolk,  the  other  in  New  York. 

Both  were  manned  by  crews  who  were  going  to  take  them 
under  fire  without  having  had  time  to  learn  how  to  manoeuvre 
them  ;  but  the  courage  and  intelligence  of  their  commanders  were 
to  make  up  for  their  want  of  experience.  The  Ilonitor  was  com- 
manded by  Lieutenant  Worden ;  the  Merrimae,  which  had  just 
been  named  the  Virginia,  by  Captain  Buchanan,  a  former  officer 
of  the  Federal  navy. 

On  quitting  the  mouth  of  the  James  River  with  Barnside, 
Commodore  Goldsborough  had  left  there,  under  Captain  Marston, 
the  largest  ships  of  his  squadron,  whose  draught  of  water  pre- 
vented them  from  steering  through  the  Hatteras  passes.  This 
division,  which  was  very  strong,  from  the  number  of  its  guns,  but 
not  on  account  of  their  calibre,  and  which  was  moreover  unable 
to  perform  any  evolution,  consisted  of  two  old  sailing  frigates, 
the  Congress  and  St.  Lawrence,  the  sailing  sloop  of  war  Cumber- 
land, and  the  two  steam  frigates  Roanoke  and  Minnesota,  sisters 
of  the  Merrimac.  But  the  Roanoke,  which  carried  Captain 
Marston's  pennant,  was  deprived,  by  the  breaking  of  her  hori- 
zontal shaft,  of  the  use  of  her  machinery.  The  last  three  vessels 
alone  were  well  armed  with  Dahlgren  howitzers  of  tAventy-four 
centimetres  calibre. 

For  some  time  past  the  Federals  had  been  apprised  of  the 
work  undertaken  on  the  Merrimac,  but  they  believed  themselves 
able  to  cope  with  that  vessel,  and  her  forthcoming  had  so  fre- 
quently been  announced  in  vain  that  they  had  ended  in  not  be- 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  597 

lieving  In  it.  Accordingly,  the  8th  of  March  found  them  in 
perfect  security.  The  Congress  and  the  Cumberland,  riding  at 
anchor  near  the  tall  pines  of  Newport  News,  had  not  even  a  soli- 
tary tug  to  enable  them  to  move  about,  M^iile  the  commander  of 
the  latter  vessel  had  gone  to  attend  a  court-martial  on  board  the 
Roanoke.  The  other  three  frigates  were  anchored  several  miles 
from  there,  in  sight  of  the  sandy  shore  of  Fortress  Monroe,  in 
the  rear  of  muddy  banks  which  are  only  ploughed  by  narrow 
and  difficult  channels. 

In  the  mean  while,  during  the  calm  of  a  beautiful  spring  morn- 
ing, the  Confederates  were  making  active  preparations  for  battle. 
Five  steamers,  formerly  employed  as  packets  on  the  Chesapeake, 
had  been  armed,  the  Patrick  Henry  with  six  guns,  the  Jamestown 
with  two,  and  each  of  the  other  three  with  one.  This  flotilla 
had  descended  the  James  River,  and  passing  off  Newport  News 
during  the  night  stood  in  for  the  Virginia,  which,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  8th,  was  coming  out  of  the  port  of  Norfolk,  near 
Nansemond  River,  under  the  command  of  Captain  Buchanan. 

At  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  lookout  on  the  Congress 
discovered  the  Confederate  steamers  descending  with  the  tide  to- 
wards Newport  News ;  in  their  midst  the  armored  hull  of  the 
Virginia  was  perceived.  The  enemy  so  long  expected  was  easily 
recognized,  and  orders  were  immediately  given  to  clear  the  decks 
for  action.  But  the  Cumberland  and  the  Congress  were  out  of 
reach  of  all  assistance  and  unable  to  manoeuvre  by  themselves. 
Buchanan  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity  offered,  without 
losing  a  moment,  and  steered  direct  for  the  Congress,  which  was 
nearest  to  him. 

The  latter  vessel  has  commenced  firing  upon  the  strange  craft, 
which  is  only  within  three  hundred  metres  of  her,  without  pro- 
ducing the  slightest  perceptible  effect.  At  this  moment  the  Vir- 
ginia opens  her  two  forward  portholes,  fires  two  shells,  which 
burst  between-decks  of  the  Congress  ;  then,  turning  away  from  the 
frigate,  she  heads  straight  for  the  Cumberland,  whose  large  missiles 
are  beginning  to  fall  upon  her  roof.  Her  first  object  is  to  silence 
the  more  powerful  artillery  of  this  second  adversary.  The  crew 
of  tlie  Cumberland  see  the  danger,  but  cannot  avoid  it,  for  it  is 
too  late  to  put  the  vessel  under  sail.     All  her  fire  is  concentrated 


598  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

upon  the  Virginia,  aud  the  small  steamers  which  follow  Buchan- 
an's flag  have  not  even  the  honor  of  attracting  a  Federal  shot. 

Everybody  feels  that  the  few  minutes  during  which  the  iron- 
clad vessel  wiH  be  exposed  at  short  range  to  the  balls  of  the 
Cumberland's  guns  of  twenty-four  centimetres  must  decide  one 
of  the  most  important  questions  of  the  war ;  if  these  guns  do  not 
succeed  in  penetrating  the  armor  of  tlie  Virginia  at  such  a  dis- 
tance, she  will  secure  the  mastery  of  the  James  River  and  the 
Chesapeake,  and  wooden  vessels  will  be  definitively  condemned. 
By  some  unaccountable  neglect,  the  Cumberland,  it  is  true,  was 
only  supplied  with  shells,  being  without  a  single  solid  ball  in  her 
magazines ;  but  the  weight  of  the  former  was  already  such  that 
the  trial  could  be  considered  as  sufficient.  It  was  indeed  decisive ; 
the  large  round  projectiles  of  the  Cumberland  rebounded  from  the 
inclined  sides  of  the  Virginia  "  like  india  rubber  balls,"  as  the 
official  reports  said.  Thousands  of  spectators  witnessed  this 
strange  and  unequal  duel  between  the  graceful  but  powerless 
champion  of  sailing-vessels,  and  the  mastless  monster  whose  iron 
scales  alone  were  visible  above  the  surface  of  the  water — a  com- 
bat resembling  a  conflict  between  a  swan  and  an  alligator.  On 
the  part  of  the  Confederates,  the  garrison  of  Norfolk,  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  city  and  the  suburbs,  as  soon  as  they  saw  the  Virginia 
in  motion,  rushed  in  crowds  to  the  beach,  whence  they  could  see 
the  Federal  fleet  in  the  distance,  and  anxiously  waited  for  the 
issue  of  the  struggle.  On  the  other  side,  the  news  of  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Virginia  was  quickly  spread.  While  the  Roanohe, 
the  St.  Lawrence,  and  the  Minnesota  were  proceeding  towards 
Newport  News,  and  the  tugs  were  hastening  to  proffer  their  val- 
uable assistance  to  the  sailing-vessels  already  engaged  in  the 
action,  an  extraordinary  excitement  prevailed  on  land  ;  everybody 
wanted  to  see  the  famous  Virginia.  At  last  the  troops  encamped 
in  the  vicinity  of  Newport  News  came  to  range  themselves  along 
the  shore  with  some  field  artillery,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to 
salute  the  Confederate  vessel  with  a  few  shots.  The  latter,  in  the 
mean  while,  continued  to  advance  slowly  and  regularly  towards 
the  Cumberland,  for  the  condition  of  her  machinery,  which  was 
somewhat  out  of  repair,  did  not  allow  her  to  proceed  at  a  faster 
rate  than  three  knots.     But  this  very  slownf-ss  rendered  her  attack 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  599 

still  more  terrible ;  from  time  to  time  her  port-holes  would  open 
and  a  few  shells  be  discharged  against  the  sides  of  the  Cumber- 
land. During  the  manoeuvre  one  of  her  guns  was  broken,  and 
many  of  those  serving  them,  by  a  shot  in  the  embrasure,  were 
wounded.  This  accident  did  not  stop  her  progress.  Having  at  last 
arrived  within  a  few  metres  of  the  Cumberland,  Buchanan  ordered 
all  the  port-holes  to  be  closed,  and  steered  right  for  the  enemy's 
vessel.  A  moment  after,  the  beak  of  the  Virginia  penetrated 
slowly  but  surely  into  the  hull  of  the  Federal  sloop ;  then,  imme- 
diately reversing  her  engines,  she  withdrew,  leaving  an  enormous 
gash  in  the  side  of  her  adversary,  into  which  the  water  rushed 
with  great  violence.  On  her  part,  the  Virginia  had  sustained 
some  serious  injuries;  the  point  of  her  steel  beak  was  broken,  and 
the  engines,  which  had  not  been  stopped  in  time  before  the  en- 
counter took  place,  received  such  a  concussion  as  to  render  their 
management  extremely  difficult.  But  these  accidents  did  not  at 
first  attract  any  notice.  As  soon  as  he  had  drawn  oif,  Buchanan, 
placing  his  vessel  at  a  distance  of  a  few  metres  from  the  Cumber- 
land,  and  presenting  her  broadside  toward  the  latter,  poured  a  vol- 
ley from  his  four  large  howitzers  into  her.  This  was  more  than 
enough  to  destroy  that  unfortunate  vessel,  which  the  water  was 
already  filling,  while  the  enemy's  shot  carried  death  and  destruc- 
tion into  every  part  of  her  hull  that  still  floated  above  the  waves. 
Braving  this  twofold  danger,  her  valiant  crew  worked  at  the 
pumps,  in  order  to  keep  the  vessel,  which  was  pitching  heavily 
and  ready  to  sink,  at  least  a  little  while  longer  afloat.  Without 
allowing  themselves  to  be  discouraged  by  the  uselessness  of  their 
fire,  which  could  not  pierce  the  armor  of  the  Virginia,  the  gun- 
ners suffered  themselves  to  be  killed  one  after  another  by  the  side 
of  their  guns ;  the  dead  were  immediately  replaced.  In  the  mean 
time,  the  water  was  gaining;  it  had  filled  the  powder  magazine, 
drowning  several  cannoneers  who  would  not  abandon  their  posts ; 
the  space  between  decks  was  submerged,  and  all  the  wounded  who 
happened  to  be  there  met  with  a  frightful  death.  Shortly  after, 
the  battery  placed  on  deck  was  submerged ;  a  single  gun  still  rose 
above  the  water ;  it  was  fired  by  the  last  surviving  gunner,  and 
the  ball,  skimming  the  surface  of  the  sea,  had  scarcely  struck  the 
sides  of  the  Virginia,  when  the  Cmnberland,  with  one   hundred 


600  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

and  twenty  of  her  heroic  defenders,  went  down  in  eighteen  metres 
of  water.  The  rest  reached  the  shore  by  swimming.  The  top  of 
the  mainmast  alone  remained  above  water ;  and  the  flag  of  the 
United  States,  which  had  been  nailed  to  it  during  the  height  of  the 
battle,  floated  for  several  years  a  mournful  and  glorious  emblem, 
marking  the  spot  of  the  submerged  hull  which  had  served  as  the 
grave  of  so  many  brave  men. 

On  perceiving  the  disaster  of  the  Cumberland,  the  Congress 
took  advantage  of  the  respite  granted  her  to  weigh  anchor  and 
run  upon  tlie  muddy  banks  adjoining  the  beach  of  Newport 
News.  She  was  thus  sure  to  avoid  being  sunk ;  but  the  same 
act  also  doomed  her  to  remain  motionless,  and  the  Virginia  could 
henceforth  cannonade  her  at  leisure.  This  is  what  Buchanan  did 
as  soon  as  he  saw  the  Cumber  land  disappear.  It  was  half-past 
two ;  while  the  small  Confederate  steamers  were  exchanging  shots 
with  the  Congress  from  a  considerable  distance,  the  Virginia,  ap- 
proaching within  two  hundred  metres  of  that  vessel,  took  a  posi- 
tion so  as  to  enfilade  the  whole  of  her  battery  without  being  her- 
self exposed  to  the  fire  of  more  than  three  or  four  guns.  Her  first 
discharge  produced  a  terrible  effect  on  board  the  Congress,  most 
of  the  gunners  being  entirely  disabled  by  it.  Although  the  Fed- 
erals had  already  sufficient  proof  of  the  inefficiency  of  their  guns 
against  the  iron  plates  of  the  Virginia,  they  continued  the  fight 
with  that  self-devotion  and  determination  of  purpose  which  esprit 
de  corps  imparts  to  select  troops.  The  field-artillery  massed  on 
the  shore  tried  in  vain  to  take  part  in  the  combat ;  but  the  fire 
of  the  infantry  was  more  effective.  The  Virginia  having  ap- 
proached the  shore,  a  few  well-directed  bullets  penetrated  through 
the  open  port-holes,  and  among  the  persons  struck  by  them  was 
the  brave  Buchanan,  who  was  severely  wounded  in  the  thigh. 

For  an  hour  and  a  half  the  Congress  kept  up  the  fight,  the 
issue  of  which  could  no  longer  be  doubtful ;  she  had  lost  all  hope 
of  assistance  on  seeing  the  Minnesota  stranded  in  the  distance 
upon  a  sand-bank,  as  she  was  coming  from  Fortress  Monroe  to 
take  part  in  the  conflict.  Nevertheless,  amid  the  dead  and  wound- 
ed who  encumbered  the  decks,  her  gunners  continued  to  fire  upon 
such  of  the  enemy's  steamers  as  happened  to  be  within  reach  of 
their  guns.     Resistance,  however,  could  be  prolonged  no  further ; 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  601 

the  commander  had  been  killed,  about  one  hundred  men  were 
disabled,  and,  according  to  eye-witnesses,  "the  deck  was  slippery 
with  the  blood  that  had  been  shed."  The  Congress  struck  her 
colors,  and  several  boats  came  alongside  to  take  possession  of  her. 
But  while  these  boats  were  taking  a  portion  of  the  frigate's  crew 
as  prisoners  of  war  on  board  the  Confederate  steamers,  the  troops 
stationed  along  the  shore  poured  a  volley  of  musketry  into  the 
Virginia^  which  wounded  some  of  the  men  who  had  ventured  out 
of  the  casemate.  Suspecting  treachery,  Buchanan  immediately 
began  to  cannonade  the  Congress  again ;  and  the  Federal  sailors 
who  were  still  on  board  took  advantage  of  this  attack  to  jump 
into  the  sea  and  save  themselves  by  swimming.  The  vessel,  being 
thus  abandoned,  was  fired  by  the  Confederates,  who  proceeded  at 
once  in  search  of  another  adversary.  The  Minnesota  seemed  to 
offer  them  a  new  and  easy  success.  On  her  way  to  Newport 
News  she  had  run  into  a  channel  which  was  only  navigable  for 
her  at  high  water,  but  through  whicli  she  hoped,  by  tlie  combined 
aid  of  sail  and  steam,  to  be  yet  able  to  open  herself  a  passage. 
She  did  not  succeed ;  and  the  receding  tide  left  her  completely 
stranded  three  miles  below  the  Congress.  Near  her  lay  the  St. 
Lawrence,  which,  having  tried  to  follow  her  under  sail,  had  also 
run  aground.  The  MoanoJce  also  had  run  upon  a  bank,  but  had 
floated  off  again  and  had  retired  towards  Fort  Monroe.  The 
Virginia,  having  been  delayed  in  consequence  of  her  injuries, 
arrived  at  last  within  reach  of  cannon-shot  of  the  two  motionless 
vessels  waiting  for  her  in  the  mud.  Their  destruction  seemed 
inevitable ;  but  fortunately  the  state  of  the  tide  at  that  moment 
did  not  allow  the  Virginia  to  approach  them  nearer  than  sixteen 
hundred  metres.  Buchanan  opened  fire  at  that  distance,  while 
at  the  same  time  the  Patrick  Henry  and  the  Jamestown,  favored 
by  their  light  draught  of  water,  took  position  nearer  to  the  3Iin- 
nesota,  and  commenced  cannonading  her  with  their  rifled  pieces. 
Many  people  on  board  this  vessel  were  killed  and  wounded ;  but 
the  game  between  them  was  equal,  and  the  Dahlgren  howitzers  of 
the  Federals  soon  compelled  the  two  i-ebel  steamers  to  seek  their 
safety  in  retreat.  The  Virginia  could  render  them  no  assistance ; 
either  through  the  fault  of  her  gunners,  or  some  defect  in  her 
guns,  or  rather  because  she  could  not  elevate  hei   pieces  suffi- 


602  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ciently  high,  her  fire  was  extremely  uncertain.  Only  one  missile 
reached  the  Minnesota ;  another  struck  the  St.  Lawrenoe :  it  was 
tlie  last  shot  fired  on  that  memorable  day.  It  was  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening ;  the  Confederate  squadron  retired  for  the  night  to 
the  vicinity  of  Norfolk,  to  prepare  for  a  renewal  of  the  work  of 
destruction  as  soon  as  daylight  should  appear. 

It  seemed  as  if  no  human  precaution  could  snatch  the  prey  from 
the  grasp  of  the  Virginia,  and  spare  from  the  fate  of  the  Cum- 
berland and  the  Congress  the  three  frigates  which  night  alone  had 
saved  from  her  attack.  The  high  tide  would,  in  fact,  enable  her 
to  approach  them  much  nearer  the  following  morning  than  she 
had  done  the  day  previous.  The  Federal  fleet  once  annihilated, 
Buchanan  could  proceed  to  bombard  Fort  Monroe,  drive  all  the 
enemy's  transports  from  Old  Point  Comfort,  thus  obliging  the 
troops  to  evacuate  the  peninsula,  and,  after  freeing  the  James 
Hiver,  himself  blockade  the  whole  of  the  Chesapeake.  The 
Virginia  was  not  enough  of  a  sea  vessel  and  carried  too  little 
coal  to  venture  upon  the  high  sea,  and,  as  it  was  then  thought,  to 
carry  dismay  even  into  the  port  of  New  York ;  but  she  could 
take  advantage  of  a  calm  to  go  and  recapture  Pamlico  Sound 
from  Goldsborough's  fleet ;  or,  better  still,  she  could  ascend  the 
Potomac  as  far  as  in  front  of  Washington  and  throw  bomb-shells 
into  the  capital  of  the  Union.  The  parts  would  then  have  been 
reversed ;  it  would  no  longer  have  been  the  part  of  the  Federals 
to  attack  Richmond  by  resting  on  the  sea,  but  the  turn  of  the 
Confederates,  who,  once  masters  of  the  inland  waters,  would  have 
had  the  powerful  co-operation  of  naval  forces  in  resuming  the 
offensive.  All  the  previsions  of  the  Federals,  founded  upon  the 
superiority  of  their  magnificent  fleet  of  wooden  vessels,  would 
have  disappeared  with  the  Cumberland  and  the  Congress.  The 
war  would  have  changed  front,  and  the  Confederate  flag,  open- 
ing a  new  era  in  maritime  warfare,  would  easily  have  raised  the 
blockade  which  prevented  the  slave  States  from  freely  procuring 
supplies  in  Europe.  This  was  enough  to  excite  the  lively  imagi- 
nations of  Southern  people.  The  Federals,  on  the  contrary,  were 
filled  with  consternation  and  dismay.  The  Congress  was  burn- 
ing slowly,  casting  a  lurid  glare  upon  the  tranquil  waters  of  New- 
port News,  while  her  guns,  which  were  still  loaded,  went  ofl"  in 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  603 

proportion  as  the  flames  reached  them ;  their  fire,  which  no  gun- 
ner had  directed,  resounded  like  a  funeral  knell  amid  the  silence 
of  the  night.  At  midnight  she  blew  up  with  a  terrific  crash,  and 
everything  was  again  enveloped  in  darkness.  But  this  mournful 
sight  did  not  for  an  instant  divert  the  Federals  from  their  work 
of  restoring  the  glacis  of  Fort  Monroe  to  a  proper  condition ;  for 
old  General  Wool,  who  commanded  that  place,  was  of  the  opinion, 
and  not  without  reason,  that  the  Federal  fleet  would  henceforth 
be  unable  to  protect  it. 

While  the  telegraph  was  spreading  throughout  the  Union  a 
degree  of  anxiety  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  with- 
out having  witnessed  it,  day  had  dawned  upon  the  waters  that 
had  been  the  scene  of  the  previous  day's  battle,  and  at  six  o'clock 
the  Virginia  left  her  anchorage  at  Craney  Island.  Her  sides  had 
been  greased  in  order  to  facilitate  the  ricochet  of  the  enemy's  jsro- 
jectiles,  and  she  was  accompanied  by  five  transports  loaded  with 
troops  destined  to  take  possession  of  the  Minnesota  as  soon  as  the 
guns  of  that  vessel  should  have  been  silenced.  The  realization  of 
this  hope  could  not  long  be  delayed ;  indeed,  all  the  eflbrts  of  her 
crew  and  the  tugs  that  surrounded  her  had  not  been  able  to  set 
the  stranded  frigate  afloat,  while  the  recoil  of  her  heavy  guns,  by 
throwing  her  on  one  side,  had  driven  her  deeper  and  deeper  into 
the  mud,  where  she  was  completely  imbedded.  Fearing  lest  she 
should  also  run  aground,  and  wishing  at  the  same  time  to  cut  off 
her  retreat,  the  Virginia,  instead  of  attacking  her  directly,  ran 
into  the  deep  waters  which  surround  the  Rip  Raps  in  the  harbor 
of  Old  Point  Comfort ;  thence  the  Confederate  ram  entered  the 
channel  in  which  the  Minnesota  was  stranded,  to  come  upon  her 
by  following  the  same  direction  she  had  herself  taken  the  day 
before. 

But  as  the  Confederate  gunners  were  about  to  open  their  port- 
holes at  the  prow  to  reply  to  the  fire  of  the  pivot  gun  placed  at 
the  stern  of  the  Federal  frigate,  a  strange  diminutive  machine  was 
seen  to  move  off  from  her  side  and  insolently  place  herself  between 
the  Virginia  and  the  victim  she  already  felt  sure  of  having.  "  It 
was  like  a  cheese-box,','  observed  the  Confederate  sailors  after- 
wards, "  placed  on  a  raft."  This  machine,  however,  moved  about 
like  a  real  vessel ;  she  had  hoisted  tlie  Federal  flag ;  and  if  the 


604  7'HE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Bailors  who  brought  her  into  the  fight  were  not  crazy,  they  must 
certainly  have  been  courageous  adversaries.  The  inteiloper  who 
had  thus  come  to  meddle  with  the  conflict  must  be  got  rid  of  with- 
out delay.  Two  empty  shells,  each  weighing  fifty  kilogrammes, 
were  sent  after  the  intruder  from  a  distance  of  a  few  hundred 
metres.  What  was  the  general  astonishment  when  these  shells 
were  seen  to  rebound  and  fall  harmless  into  the  sea.  "The 
cheese-box  is  an  iron  tower,"  they  exclaimed  on  board  the  Vh^- 
ginia. 

It  was,  in  fact,  the  Ilonitor,  which,  having  been  completed  on 
the  same  day  as  the  latter  vessel,  had,  by  a  second  chance,  not 
less  strange,  just  reached  the  battle-field  of  Hampton  Roads  at 
the  moment  when  her  presence  alone  could  change  the  aspect  of 
the  fight. 

It  was  not  for  the  purpose  of  holding  the  Virginia  in  check 
that  she  had  been  brought  into  the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake.  As 
we  shall  show  hereafter,  the  Washington  government  had  pre- 
j)ared  a  plan  of  attack  against  the  batteries  which  blockaded  the 
Potomac,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  had  promised  the  co- 
operation of  the  Monitor  in  carrying  out  this  project.  The  latter 
vessel  was  scarcely  finished  when  she  left  the  port  of  New  York 
in  tow  of  a  steamer,  and  after  encountering  a  gale  of  wind,  during 
which  she  behaved  well,  she  had  entered  the  waters  of  the  Chesa- 
peake on  the  8th  of  March.  She  had  strict  orders  to  touch  only 
at  Fort  Monroe,  and  to  ascend  the  Potomac  at  once,  where  she 
was  anxiously  looked  for.  But  as  she  was  approaching  the  en- 
trance of  the  James,  the  booming  of  cannon  at  Newport  News 
apprised  her  commander.  Lieutenant  Worden,  that  a  naval  battle 
was  being  fought  in  those  waters.  Suspecting  the  danger,  he  in- 
creased the  speed  of  the  vessel,  whose  capacities  he  had  not  even 
yet  tested,  when  he  was  boarded  by  a  pilot,  who  informed  him  of 
the  disaster  that  had  just  occurred.  For  all  answer  Worden 
quietly  requested  him  to  take  his  vessel  straight  against  the  Vir- 
ginia. The  unfortunate  pilot,  seized  with  terror,  preferred  leav- 
ing him  rather  than  execute  an  order  which  seemed  so  preposter- 
ous. In  the  mean  time,  night  had  come.  .  As  soon  as  he  had  cast 
anchor,  Worden,  taking  apon  himself  the  responsibility  of  violat- 
ing the  letter  of  his  instructions,  made  up  his  mind  to  take  a  hand 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  605 

in  the  battle  of  the  next  clay,  and  went  to  hide  himself  behind  the 
large  hull  of  the  Minnesota,  in  order  to  fall  suddenly  upon  the 
Virginia  as  soon  as  the  latter  should  reappear.  The  system  of 
revolving  turrets  had  never  been  tried,  and  all  was  as  new  to  the 
gunners  as  to  the  engineers  of  the  3Ionitor.  For  his  two  guns  of 
twenty-nine  centimetres  calibre  Worden  had  shells  weighing  sev- 
enty-two kilogrammes,  cast-iron  l)alls  weighing  eighty-four,  and 
wrought-iron  balls  weighing  ninety-two.  He  decided  to  use  pro- 
jectiles of  the  second  class,  as  the  shells  would  certainly  break 
against  the  iron  plates  of  the  Virginia,  while  his  wrought-iron 
balls  seemed  too  heavy  for  his  cast-iron  guns,  which  might  burst 
and  damage  every  part  of  his  vessel.  At  a  later  period  these  same 
guns,  loaded  with  wrought-iron  balls  and  a  charge  of  powder 
weighing  fifteen  kilogrammes,  were  fired  without  accident,  but  in 
this  first  trial  the  decision  of  the  Federal  captain  was  the  wisest. 
The  Confederate  officers  undei*stood  that  a  foeman  worthy  of 
their  steel  had  come  to  play  with  them,  double  or  quits,  in  the 
game  Avhich  the  star-spangled  banner  had  lost  the  day  before. 
Letting  alone  the  large  Federal  frigate,  which,  unable  to  defend 
herself,  was  to  be  the  prize  of  the  contest,  their  present  thought 
was  only  to  fight  the  Monitor.  Being  both  impatient  to  achieve 
a  victory,  and  each  confiding  in  the  powerful  armor  of  his  vessel, 
the  two  iron-clads  rapidly  approach  each  other  and  exchange  shots 
from  their  tremendous  guns  at  a  few  metres  distance.  The  confi- 
dence felt  on  both  sides  was  fully  justified.  The  crew  of  the 
Minnesota  beheld  with  admiring  wonder  the  enormous  balls  which 
their  own  vessel  could  not  have  withstood  glancing  off  or  break- 
ing against  the  armor  of  the  two  combatants.  The  fight,  which 
began  at  eight  o'clock,  was  long  continued  without  either  of  them 
having  been  able  to  effect  a  breach  in  the  armor  of  his  antagonist. 
At  last.  Captain  Jones,  who  succeeded  Buchana"n  in  the  command 
of  the  Virginia,  after  the  latter  had  been  wounded,  determines  to 
apply  the  same  tactics  against  the  3Ionitor  which  have  pre  ved  so 
fatal  to  the  Cumberland.  She  steers  with  direct  aim  toward  her 
in  order  to  strike  her  with  the  beak,  but  the  point  of  this  weapon 
w^as  broken  the  day  previous ;  and  a  clever  shifting  of  the  helm 
causing  the  Monitor  to  sheer  off  at  the  critical  moment,  the  prow 
of  the  Virginia  only  touched  the  edge  of  her  deck,  and  turned 


606  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

her  around  without  inflicting  any  damage.  Once  apprised  of  this 
new  danger,  the  Federal  vessel,  which  is  swifter  and  more  skil- 
fully handled  than  her  heavier  adversary,  continues  to  manoeuvre 
so  as  to  avoid  coming  in  contact  with  her,  and  keeps  turning 
round,  firing  through  the  embrasures,  in  hope  of  disabling  her. 
The  two  vessels  are  only  ten  metres  apart.  The  balls,  failing  to 
penetrate  their  armor,  fly  in  every  direction ;  some  of  them  strike 
the  Minnesota  ;  another  bursts  the  boiler  of  a  steam-tug  fastened 
to  her  sides ;  the  little  Confederate  steamers  have  deemed 
it  prudent  to  withdraw  from  this  dangerous  locality.  At  last, 
after  four  hours'  fighting,  a  shot  from  the  Monitor  strikes  the  Vir- 
ginia near  the  water-line,  and  opens  a  dangerous  leak  in  her.  Al- 
most at  the  same  moment  one  of  the  enemy's  balls  strikes  against 
the  small  observatory  within  shelter  of  which  Worden  is  directing 
his  vessel.  This  was  a  square  box  composed  of  iron  ingots  thirty- 
two  centimetres  in  thickness,  with  small  crevices  between  them, 
through  which  the  captain  could  observe  all  that  was  going  on 
outside,  for  the  whole  interior  of  the  ship,  with  the  exception  of 
the  turret,  lighted  from  above,  was  enveloped  in  utter  darkness. 
The  shock  detached  some  splinters,  which  severely  wounded  the 
brave  Worden  in  the  eyes.  He  was  struck  at  the  moment  of  his 
triumph.  The '  Virginia,  being  in  danger  from  the  leak,  para- 
lyzed by  the  condition  of  her  engines,  which  were  working  worse 
and  worse,  despairing,  in  short,  of  getting  the  upper  hand  of  her 
invulnerable  antagonist,  gave  up  the  game  and  slowly  retired  in 
the  direction  of  Norfolk. 

The  Monitor  remained  on  the  battle-field  near  the  ships  she 
had  just  saved  ;  but  the  service  she  had  rendered  them  was  but  a 
small  matter  compared  with  the  other  results  of  her  victory.  All 
the  fears  that  had  sprung  up  in  consequence  of  the  previous  day's 
battle  were  dissipated.  The  Virginia  was  not  able  to  come  out 
of  the  James  River.  The  Chesapeake,  the  Potomac,  the  high  sea, 
in  short,  were  under  the  control  of  the  Federals ;  and  if  the  latter 
had  been  taught  to  feel  that  their  wooden  fleet  could  not  with- 
stand a  single  iron-clad  vessel  of  the  enemy,  they  had  also  found 
an  engine  of  destruction  superior  in  every  respect  to  that  which 
the  Confederates  had  just  put  on  trial  against  them. 

The  battle  of  Hampton  Roads  will  continue  to  be  one  of  the 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  607 

most  memorable  events  in  modern  warfare ;  never  were  so  many- 
new  inventions  exposed  at  once  to  the  practical  ordeal  of  battle. 
"Wooden  vessels  of  every  class,  together  with  iron-clads,  some 
with  batteries,  others  with  turrets,  were  all  put  upon  trial  at  the 
same  time.  It  was  the  first  time  that,  besides  su(*h  vessels,  screw- 
propellers — which,  however,  had  been  in  existence  for  twenty- 
years — had  been  seen  to  figure  in  a  naval  corabftt.  The  propel- 
lers were  found  to  be  as  powerless  in  this  kind  of  warfare  as  the 
old  sailing-vessels.  The  iron-clads,  on  the  contrary,  showed 
themselves  to  be  invulnerable  to  shells;  the  deep  indentations 
made  upon  the  armor  of  the  Ilonitor  and  the  Virginia,  however, 
proved  that  they  might  be  penetrated  by  heavy-  cannon-balls  fired 
from  land-batteries,  where  the  weight  of  the  gun  is  not  subser- 
vient to  the  exigencies  of  the  floating  surface.  Finally,  the  de- 
struction of  the  Cumberland  demonstrated  the  power  of  the  sharp 
beak,  forgotten  since  the  days  of  the  Romans,  this  last  and  for- 
midable resource  of  resolute  sailors,  the  use  of  which  the  two 
greatest  naval  commanders  of  our  own  times,  Farragut  and 
Tegethoff,  as  well  as  Buchanan,  have  again  taught  us. 

The  Virginia  had  suffered  from  the  engagement,  but  her  in- 
juries were  of  such  a  character  as  to  admit  of  being  promptly- 
repaired.  If  she  should  succeed  in  acquiring  a  rate  of  speed 
equal  to  that  of  the  Monitor,  which  was  an  easy  matter,  with  an 
engine  as  powerful  as  hers,  might  she  not  reappear  in  Hampton 
Roads,  and,  taking  no  notice  of  the  adversary  whose  attack  had 
probably  occupied  her  too  exclusively,  renew  her  work  of  destruc- 
tion upon  the  wooden  vessels?  In  that  case,  the  Monitor,  having 
no  beak,  would  be  reduced  to  the  use  of  her  guns,  the  effect  of 
which  the  Virginia  had  already  borne  without  much  damage. 
The  Federal  naval  authorities  fully  appreciated  all  the  drawbacks 
to  the  success  of  March  the  9th ;  and  in  order  to  avert  the  danger 
of  another  attack  from  the  enemy's  iron-clad,  they  hastened  to  sta- 
tion several  large  vessels  at  the  mouth  of  the  James,  which  were  tc 
board  the  Virginia  and  sink  her  as  soon  as  she  should  appear. 
But  the  latter  vessel  did  not  avail  herself  of  the  chances  she  still 
possessed  on  the  10th  of  March.  "Were  her  injuries  more  serious 
than  had  at  first  been  supposed  ?  Was  much  precious  time  lost 
in  reconstructiuG:  her  beak,  or  in  increasing;  the  calibre  of  her  ar- 


608  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

tilleiy  ?  Was  her  inaction  to  be  attributed  to  the  timidity  of  the 
Richmond  government,  unwilling  to  jeopardize  a  vessel  whose 
presence  alone  closed  to  the  Federals  the  maritime  approaches  to 
their  capital  ?  It  is  difficult  to  say.  It  may  be  that  the  Vir- 
ginia lost  all  her  efficiency  with  the  loss  of  the  brave  commander 
who  had  so  skilfully  handled  her  on  the  first  day,  and  who  would 
doubtless  not  have  accepted  the  combat  of  the  day  following  as  a 
final  defeat. 

Before  proceeding  any  further,  we  must  go  back  to  the  period 
when  we  left  General  McClellan  planning  the  operations  upon 
which  the  battle  of  Hampton  Roads  was  to  have  such  an  import- 
ant bearing.  We  have  indicated  the  combinations  among  which 
he  could  make  a  choice,  and  the  difficulties  that  each  of  them 
presented.  His  plan  was  determined  upon  by  the  end  of  Jan- 
uary. He  only  took  into  his  confidence  the  President,  a  few 
cabinet  ministers,  and  his  principal  generals ;  and  while  the  con- 
struction of  his  bridge  equipages  was  being  completed,  he  devoted 
all  his  time  to  devising  the  necessary  means  of  transportation  in 
order  to  carry  out  with  precision  and  promptitude  the  bold  move- 
ment he  had  conceived.  Unfortunately  for  his  army,  a  violent 
sickness,  as  we  have  already  stated,  came  to  interrupt  these  labors, 
and  for  a  time  to  paralyze  his  faculties  at  the  moment  when  they 
would  have  been  of  the  utmost  value.  The  fever  had  seized  him 
before  he  had  time  to  transfer  the  command  to  one  of  his  lieu- 
tenants. Seniority  would  have  designated  McDowell.  The  staff 
did  not  deem  it  proper  to  recommend  the  vanquished  soldier  of 
the  21st  of  July  for  so  important  an  interim,  and  they  continued 
to  exercise  the  command  in  the  name  of  the  sick  chief.  The 
President,  on  his  part,  did  not  dare  to  strike  at  the  power  of  a 
general  whose  convalescence  Avas  announced  to  him  from  day  to 
day ;  but  at  last,  on  the  10th  of  January,  having  become  im- 
patient at  not  being  able  to  confer  with  him,  he  sent  for  two 
generals  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  bluntly  requested  them 
to  furnish  him  with  a  plan  of  campaign  which  could  be  carried 
out  with  the  least  possible  delay.  The  next  day,  the  11th,  these 
generals  proceeded  to  institute  inquiries  into  the  condition  of  the 
army,  through  the  administrative  bureaux,  and  requested  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  confide  to  them  all  the  plans  of 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  609 

General  McClellan,  which  were  immediately  revealed,  and  ex- 
amined before  a  council  in  which  there  sat,  besides  themselves,  the 
President,  the  Secretaries  of  State  and  Treasury,  the  Postmaster- 
General  and  an  Assistant  Secretary  of  War. 

On  the  13th,  after  a  few  more  conferences,  this  same  council, 
increased  in  numbers,  met  at  the  house  of  General  McClellan,  who 
was  scarcely  convalescent.  He  refused  to  discuss  his  plans  in  the 
presence  of  an  assemblage  the  composition  of  which  seemed  to 
him  somewhat  whimsical,  and  the  President  sustained  his  objec- 
tion by  breaking  up  the  meeting. 

Fifteen  days  elapsed,  during  which  the  severity  of  the  weather 
rendered  it  impossible  to  put  the  troops  in  motion,  and  which 
General  McClellan  employed  in  re-examining  the  plan  he  had  to 
submit  to  the  President ;  but  suddenly  the  latter  decided  to  exer- 
cise the  supreme  command,  w^hich  the  Constitution  conferred  upon 
him,  in  person.  Without  even  consulting  the  man  whom  he  had 
appointed  commander-in-chief  of  his  armies,  he  published,  on  the 
27th  of  January,  under  the  title  of  "  First  general  orders  of  the 
President,"  a  document  which  will  ever  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
strangest  monuments  of  that  epoch.  This  order  directs  all  the 
land  and  naval  forces  of  the  Republic  to  attack  the  enemy  on  the 
same  day,  and  to  this  effect  he  destignates  the  22jd  of  February, 
the  anniversary  of  Washington's  birth-day.  Generals,  heads  of 
departments,  and  their  employes,  are  each  to  be  held  responsible 
for  the  non-execution  of  this  order,  although  none  of  them  have 
been  consulted,  and  although  the  date  of  this  simultaneous  move- 
ment has  been  fixed  without  any  regard  to  the  differences  of  cli- 
mate, the  positions  of  the  enemy,  and  the  peculiar  circumstances 
under  which  each  army  may  happen  to  be  placed.  Soon  after 
this  General  McClellan  submits  to  the  President,  in  detail,  his 
plan  for  landing  the  troops  at  Urbanna.  But  on  the  31st  of 
January  the  latter  refuses  to  endorse  it.  Penetrated  by  the  ne- 
cessity to  begin  the  campaign  at  once,  unwilling  to  belie  the  order 
by  which  he  had  directed  a  general  movement  on  the  22d  of  Feb- 
ruary, and  dreading  the  delays  which  a  naval  operation  would 
occasion,  Mr.  Lincoln  substituted  another  plan  for  that  which  had 
been  proposed  to  him.  Leaving  to  General  McClellan  the  respon- 
sibility of  carrying  out  this  new  plan,  he  directed  him  to  attack 

Vol.  I,— 39 


610  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  enemy  by  menacing  Manassas  on  the  west — that  is  to  say,  on 
the  side  of  the  Shenandoah  valley. 

On  the  3d  of  Febrnaiy,  after  a  verbal  discussion,  the  President 
propounded  to  him  a  series  of  questions  in  writing  upon  the 
relative  merits  of  the  two  plans,  and  the  general  replied  on  the 
same  day,  in  the  shape  of  a  memorial  addressed  to  the  Secretary 
of  War,  wherein  the  advantages  of  his  project  were  clearly  and 
irrefutably  set  forth.  Mr.  Lincoln,  without  being  convinced,  felt 
nevertheless  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to  compel  the  general  to 
execute  an  operation  he  had  pronounced  impracticable,  and  sus- 
pended the  order  he  had  given  him  to  attack  Manassas.  But  he 
insisted  that  the  army  of  the  Potomac  should,  before  moving 
away,  completely  ensure  the  communications  of  Washington  with 
the  Western  and  Northern  States;  to  accomplish  this  the  army 
had  to  reopen  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  which  had  been 
interrupted  at  Harper's  Ferry  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and 
to  destroy  the  batteries  which  blockaded  the  Lower  Potomac. 

This  preliminary  task  was  not  easy  to  accomplish ;  neverthe- 
less, as  soon  as  the  weather  permitted,  General  McClellan  set  him- 
self to  work.  On  the  24th  of  February  Banks's  division,  en- 
camped on  the  left  borders  of  the  Upper  Potomac,  and  that  of 
Sedgwick,  the  same  which,  under  Stone,  had  experienced  the  re- 
verse of  Ball's  Bluff,  made  a  demonstration  against  Harper's 
Ferry.  A  few  companies  crossed  the  river  in  boats  ;  they  found 
no  enemy  among  the  desolate  ruins  of  that  charming  little  town, 
and  they  occupied  the  surrounding  heights.  A  bridge  equipage, 
forwarded  from  Annapolis  by  rail  during  the  night  of  the  25th— 
26th,  was  unloaded  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Four  hours 
later  the  last  boat  was  fastened  to  the  Virginia  shore,  and  the  gen- 
eral-in-chief  was  the  first  to  cross  from  one  side  to  the  other,  with 
the  heads  of  column  of  several  divisions  concentrated  in  haste  on 
the  left  bank.  At  this  place  the  river  was  three  hundred  metres 
wide,  seven  metres  deep,  with  a  rapid  current,  a  rocky  bottom,  and 
scarped  banks.  Nevertheless,  this  delicate  operation,  so  entirely 
new  to  an  American  army,  was  accomplished  with  great  celerity 
and  success.  Encouraged  by  such  a  beginning.  General  McClel- 
lan thought  for  a  moment  of  turning  the  simple  demonstration 
he  had  just  made  into  a  decisive  operation,  of  which  the  valley  of 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  611 

Virginia  would  liave  been  the  theatre.  He  had  already  issued 
orders,  directing  the  greatest  portion  of  his  army  to  proceed  to- 
wards Harper's  Ferry,  when  one  of  those  incidents  which  make 
so  hazardous  a  game  of  war  compelled  him,  in  spite  of  himself, 
to  adopt  once  more  the  project  M'hich  had  so  long  had  his  prefer- 
ence. The  bridge  of  boats  thrown,  on  the  26th,  over  a  river  so 
wide  and  so  subject  to  sudden  risings  as  the  Potomac  could  not 
suffice  for  the  communications  of  a  large  army.  Accordingly,  in 
order  to  establish  a  more  solid  crossing,  a  large  number  of  barges, 
M'hich  were  to  debouch  into  the  river  through  a  lock  situated  in 
front  of  Harper's  Ferry,  were  assembled  in  the  Ohio  Canal.  But 
when  everything  was  ready,  and  an  attempt  made  to  bring  down 
these  barges  into  the  waters  of  the  Potomac,  above  the  rapids 
which  obstruct  its  course,  it  was  found  that  they  were  too  broad 
for  the  lock,  the  latter  being  especially  intended  to  allow  the  en- 
trance into  the  canal  of  the  small  boats  which  ply  on  the  Shenan- 
doah. It  would  have  required  several  days  to  widen  the  passage ; 
the  army  would  have  lost  all  the  advantages  that  a  rapid  move- 
ment might  have  secured,  and  would  have  found  itself  in  a  per- 
ilous position.  General  McClellan  gave  up  the  plan  he  had  just 
formed,  but  did  not  return  to  Washington  until  he  had  secured 
the  restoration  of  the  railway,  which  Mr.  Lincoln  considered  so 
important. 

The  latter  at  last  decided  to  furnish  the  commander  of  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  the  means  for  undertaking  his  maritime 
expedition.  On  the  27th  of  February  the  first  orders  for  char- 
tering numerous  vessels  to  transport  the  army  were  received  at  the 
War  Department.  The  government,  notwithstanding  its  impa- 
tience to  act,  had  thus  wasted  six  weeks,  during  which  all  the 
necessary  preparations  might  easily  have  been  completed.  In  the 
mean  while,  before  taking  the  field.  General  McClellan  was  obliged, 
in  compliance  with  the  orders  of  the  President,  to  raise  the  Poto- 
mac blockade.  Any  attempt  at  disembarkation  or  movement  of 
his  army  on  that  side  might  have  brought  on  a  general  engage- 
ment under  the  most  unfavorable  circumstances.  The  naval  force, 
being  otherwise  engaged,  had  not  the  means  to  attempt  such  a  dif- 
ficult enterprise.  Tt  could  only  promise  him  for  the  10th  or  12th 
of  March,  an  auxiliary  which  might  prove  useful,  but  upon  which 


612  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

it  would  have  been  imprudent  to  rely  absolutely.  This  was  the 
Monitor.  We  have  seen  how  from  her  entrance  into  the  Chesa- 
peake she  found  a  better  opportunity  for  making  a  successful  trial 
of  her  qualities  as  a  man-of-war.  The  battle  of  the  8th  of  March 
deranged  all  the  plans  that  had  been  formed  for  the  future  cam- 
paign of  the  army  of  the  Potomac ;  and  by  a  new  coincidence,  as 
strange  as  the  meeting  of  the  two  iron-clads  at  the  mouth  of  the 
James,  it  was  precisely  on  the  8th  of  March  that  these  plans  had 
been  definitely  determined  upon. 

In  fact,  after  having  ordered  the  preparations  which  McClellan 
had  so  long  solicited,  Mr.  Lincoln  relapsed  into  hesitancy,  and 
insisted  that  the  general-in-chief  should  submit  his  project  to  the 
examination  of  a  council  of  war.  Twelve  generals*  assembled  on 
the  8th  of  March,  not  to  receive  the  instructions  of  their  chief, 
but  to  constitute  a  tribunal  for  passing  judgment  on  his  plans ; 
these  were  approved  by  a  majority  of  eight  to  four. 

Bound  by  a  decision  he  had  himself  courted,  the  President 
accepted  it  with  a  bad  grace ;  and  being  still  under  some  fatal 
influence,  he  published  two  orders  which  indirectly  interfered 
with  its  execution.  The  first  of  these  orders  divided  the  army 
of  the  Potomac  into  five  army  corps ;  and  regardless  of  McClel- 
lan's  opinion  as  to  the  qualifications  of  his  subordinates,  it  gave 
the  command  of  these  army  corps  to  five  of  the  oldest  generals 
of  division.  Among  these  officers  there  were  three  who  had  just 
condemned  the  plan  of  their  chief  in  a  council  of  war.  This 
was  to  substitute  oligarchy  for  that  despotism  which  Washington 
considered  indispensable  in  an  army.  McClellan  might  have 
prevented  this  fatal  decision  by  forming  the  army  corps  himself, 
but  he  had  preferred  to  wait  for  the  trial  of  the  first  campaign, 
in  order  to  bestow  the  distinction  upon  those  most  worthy  of  it. 

The  second  order  directed  him  to  leave  such  a  number  of  troops 
in  Washington  as  the  majority  of  his  corps  commanders  should 
deem  necessary  to  secure  the  safety  of  the  capital ;  not  to  transport 
more  than  fifty  thousand  men,  and  to  wait  for  a  new  order  from 

*  This  council  was  composed  of  McDowell,  Sumner,  Heintzelman,  Keyes, 
F.  J.  Porter,  Franklin,  McCall,  Blenker,  division  commanders ;  Naglee,  repre- 
senting Hooker,  chief  of  the  tenth  division ;  A.  Porter,  provost-marshal-gen- 
eral ;  and  Barnard,  commander  of  engineers.  The  three  first  named  and  the 
last  voted  against  General  McClellan's  plan. 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  613 

the  Presideut  to  embark  the  remainder ;  to  begin  the  movement 
not  later  than  the  18th  of  March,  and  finally  to  make  an  effort,. 
with  the  co-operation  of  the  navy,  to  put  an  end  to  that  blockade 
of  the  Potomac  which  was  the  source  of  so  much  alarm  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  capital. 

This  was  to  divide  the  army  into  three  parts :  one  to  embark 
at  Annapolis,  the  second  to  attack  the  batteries  on  the  Lower 
Potomac,  the  third  to  keep  guard  over  Washington ;  it  was,  in 
short,  to  fix  a  specified  date  for  an  operation  which  did  not  depend 
alone  upon  General  McClellan,  as  he  could  not  embark  on  the 
18  th  of  March  unless  the  War  and  Navy  Departments  should 
furnish  him  in  time  with  transports,  the  chartering  and  equip- 
ment of  which  had  been  taken  from  his  control. 

The  news  of  the  destruction  of  the  Congress  and  the  Cumber- 
kind,  which  was  received  on  the  morning  of  the  9th,  caused  all 
these  preparations  to  be  suspended,  for  it  was  no  longer  Pich- 
mond  but  Washington  that  was  menaced.  On  the  same  evening, 
however,  a  despatch  from  Mr.  Fox,  who  had  gone  to  meet  the 
Monitor,  announced  the  success  of  that  vessel  and  the  retreat  of 
the  Virginia.  The  immediate  result  of  this  second  day's  fight 
was  to  render  the  navigation  of  the  Chesapeake  once  more  safe. 
If  the  James  River  remained  closed  by  the  presence  of  the  Vir- 
ginia at  Norfolk,  Urbanna  and  Fortress  Monroe  were  both  acces- 
sible, and  could  yet  afford  a  solid  base  for  the  great  operation 
which  the  army  of  the  Potomac  was  about  to  undertake.  But 
the  plans  of  McClellan,  already  so  frequently  frustrated,  as 
if  by  a  kind  of  fatality  connected  with  the  dates  of  the  8th 
and  9th  of  March,  were  again  seriously  compromised  by  an 
event  which  was  almost  as  unexpected  as  the  battle  between 
the  iron-clads ;  we  allude  to  the  evacuation  of  Manassas  by  the 
Confederates.  Was  this  evacuation,  which  had  long  since  been 
contemplated  and  in  active  preparation  for  more  than  a  week,  has- 
tened by  some  criminal  indiscretions  ?  There  are  many  indica- 
tions which  would  seem  to  justify  such  a  conclusion,  although  not 
affording  positive  proof  of  the  fact.  Whatever  the  case  may  be, 
on  the  very  day  following  that  when  the  maritime  expedition  was 
determined  upon  by  a  council  of  war,  the  Confederates,  by  a 
rapid  retreat,  escaped  the  most  serious  dangers  they  would  have 


614  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

encountered  from  this  expedition.  Now  they  had  time  to  reach 
Richmond  even  before  the  Federal  army  could  embark  upon  the 
transports,  whose  arrival  was  delayed  from  day  to  day.  The 
long-debated  question,  however,  relative  to  the  raising  of  the  Po- 
tomac blockade  was  solved  by  the  abandonment  of  the  enemy's 
batteries.  Instead  of  going  to  Annapolis  in  search  of  the  vessels 
which  were  to  convey  his  soldiers  to  the  coasts  of  the  Chesapeake, 
McClellan  would  see  them  arrive  in  front  of  his  encampments  at 
Alexandria.  The  famous  redoubts  at  Manassas  were  invaded  by 
a  crowd  of  curious  persons  who  could  without  danger  underrate 
their  importance  and  criticise  the  general  whose  prudence  did  not 
allow  him  to  sacrifice  the  elite  of  his  young  army  for  the  sake  of 
carrying  them.  But  the  moral  eifect  which  the  retreat  of  the 
Confederates  would  have  produced  a  few  days  later  was  wanting. 
If  so  much  time  had  not  been  wasted  in  indecision,  the  evacuation 
of  Manassas  would  have  coincided  with  the  disembarkation  of  the 
first  Federal  soldiers  at  Urbanna  or  Newport  News,  and  every- 
body would  have  attributed  it  to  the  bold  movement  of  McClellan. 

The  army  of  the  Potomac  left  its  quarters  to  take  possession 
of  the  enemy's  works.  On  the  10th  of  March  it  occupied  Cen- 
treville;  on  the  11th  Manassas  Junction.  Large  quantities  of 
stores,  burnt  or  scattered  in  the  mud,  storehouses  still  in  flames, 
the  smoking  debris  of  numerous  trains,  traces  of  destruction 
everywhere,  imparted  a  lugubrious  and  sinister  aspect  to  the  cele- 
brated plateau.  Although  the  Federal  army  was  to  encounter  no 
adversary,  this  movement  was  useful  to  the  soldiers  as  a  marching 
exercise.  It  was,  moreover,  necessary  in  order  to  occupy  the  po- 
sitions which  were  to  cover  Washington  during  the  future  cam- 
paign. It  was  at  Manassas  that  the' garrison  of  the  capital  ought 
to  be  placed,  for  it  could  thence  command  the  whole  surrounding 
country ;  but  this  was  the  extreme  scope  of  the  aggressive  move- 
ment so  suddenly  undertaken.  The  enemy  had  disappeared ;  and 
although  the  smoke  of  burning  bridges  behind  him  still  rose 
above  the  forest  which  greets  the  eye  at  Manassas  Junction,  all 
serious  pursuit  was  impossible.  The  troops  had  no  means  of  ob- 
taining supplies ;  the  roads  were  broken  up,  and  the  water  courses, 
swollen  by  the  rains,  were  no  longer  practicable. 

General  Joseph  Johnston,  who,  since  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  615 

had  commanded  all  the  Confederate  forces  at  Manassi,s  in  the 
valley  of  Virginia  and  on  the  Lower  Potomac,  had  conducted  the 
delicate  operation  which  transferred  the  greatest  portion  of  his 
army  to  the  new  battle-field  selected  by  his  adversary  with  equal 
ability  and  success.  His  own  soldiers  only  learned  on  the  7th  of 
March,  on  receiving  marching  orders,  that  the  evacuation  of  Manas- 
sas had  been  secretly  going  on  for  several  weeks.  Not  a  single 
cannon  nor  gun-carriage  nor  projectile  had  been  left  in  the  vast 
depots  the  Confederates  had  established  at  the  intersection  of  the 
two  railways.  With  regard  to  the  batteries  which  blockaded  the 
Potomac,  the  difficulties  were  much  greater,  owing  to  the  distance 
of  the  Acquia  Creek  station ;  stores,  ammunition,  and  even  a  few 
pieces  of  artillery  had  to  be  left  behind.  In  order  to  keep  these 
objects  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  the  Confederates 
buried  them  in  the  ditches,  to  which  they  gave  the  appearance  of 
newly-dug  graves  by  means  of  crosses  and  other  devices ;  but 
they  carried  the  joke  a  little  too  far.  The  inscriptions  which 
adorned  the  false  graves,  invoking,  with  much  affectation,  respect 
for  the  dead,  excited  the  suspicion  of  the  Yankees,  who  were  not 
long  in  discovering  the  trick. 

Leaving  Jackson  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  free  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  judgment,  Johnston  fell  back  upon  the  Rap- 
pahannock with  little  less  than  fifty  thousand  able-bodied  men. 
Resting  his  right  on  Fredericksburg,  and  taking  his  left  to  the 
rear  of  the  Rapidan,  he  waited  in  these  positions,  destined  to  be- 
come so  celebrated  at  a  later  day,  for  McClellan  to  define  his 
movement  either  by  laud  or  water. 

The  choice  of  the  Federals  had  long  since  been  madej  and  a 
reconnaissance  undertaken  by  General  Stoneman  with  a  brigade 
of  cavalry  and  a  regiment  of  infantry  only  served  to  demonstrate 
the  impossibility  of  pursuit.  Stoneman  followed  the  enemy 
across  a  country  absolutely  destitute  of  resources,  from  Manassas 
to  Cedar  Creek,  exchanging  a  few  musket-shots  with  the  Confed- 
erate rear-guard.  Menaced  by  the  rapidly  swelling  streams  be- 
hind him,  he  hastened  to  retrace  his  steps ;  and  although  perfectly 
unmolested,  he  had  much  trouble  in  bringing  back  his  soldiers, 
whose  provisions  were  exhausted,  to  the  vicinity  of  the  Federal 
d6p6ts. 


616  THE  CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

In  the  mean  while,  politics  continued  to  interfere  in  military 
affairs.  On  the  12th  of  March  a  Washington  journal  published 
an  order  of  Mr.  Lincoln  depriving  General  McClellan  of  the 
supreme  command  of  the  armies,  and  limiting  his  authority  to 
the  army  of  the  Potomac.  The  other  armies  were  to  form  inde- 
pendent commands,  under  the  immediate  control  of  the  President, 
who  claimed  the  right  of  directing  their  collective  operations  in 
future.  It  was  through  this  journal  that  General  McClellan  was 
informed  of  his  removal  from  the  command-in-chief.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  not  the  courage  to  notify  him  of  the  fact,  and  only 
signed  the  order  after  he  had  seen  him  leave  Washington  to  take 
the  field.     The  general  bore  this  insult  with  patriotic  resignation. 

The  evacuation  of  Manassas  had  changed  the  relative  position 
of  the  two  armies.  On  the  13th,  McClellan  submitted  the  plan 
for  disembarking  on  the  shore  of  Fortress  Monroe  to  a  council 
composed  of  four  of  his  corps  commanders,  who,  on  this  occa- 
sion, adopted  it  unanimously,  provided  that  there  should  be  noth- 
ing to  fear  from  the  Virginia,  that  the  transportation  should  be 
effected  rapidly,  that  the  naval  force  should  co-operate  in  the  at- 
tack upon  the  batteries  of  York  River,  and  that  the  garrison  of 
Washington  should  be  sufficiently  strong  to  secure  the  entire 
safety  of  that  city.  The  President  confirmed  this  decision ;  and 
the  War  Department,  until  then  paralyzed  by  so  much  indecision, 
applied  at  last  all  its  energy  to  collect  the  immense  materiel  re- 
quisite for  the  transportation  of  the  army. 

Positive  orders  were  forwarded  to  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and 
especially  to  New  York ;  and  the  Potomac  was  soon  seen  swarm- 
ing with  steamers  of  every  description,  from  the  Transatlantic 
packets  down  to  flat-bottomed  boats  intended  exclusively  for  river 
service.  The  latter  could  carry  as  many  as  one  thousand  four 
hundred  men  in  a  single  trip,  navigation  on  the  tranquil  waters 
of  the  Chesapeake  occupying  only  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hours. 
They  had  large  barges  and  tenders  in  tow  for  conveying  horses 
and  artillery.  It  was  expected  that  fifty  thousand  men,  with 
their  materiel,  could  be  transported  in  a  single  trip ;  but  the  flo- 
tilla assembled  below  Washington  could  scarcely  accommodate 
one-half  of  that  number,  which  was  a  new  cause  of  delay  in  the 
opening  of  the  campaign.     Nevertheless,  on  the  16th  of  March, 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  617 

the  whole  array  was  massed  in  tlie  neighborhood  of  Alexandria, 
where  the  embarkation  was  to  take  place.  Near  this  city  eigh- 
teen wooden  piers  jut  out  into  the  waters  of  the  Potomac,  many 
of  which  have  wharf  accommodations  for  three  large  steamers. 
The  transports  come  alongside,  and  the  quartermaster  on  duty 
immediately  telegraphs  to  headquarters  the  number  of  men, 
horses,  and  materiel  that  can  be  embarked  at  each  wharf.  In 
accordance  with  this  information.  General  McClellan  also  trans- 
mits orders  by  telegraph  to  such  and  such  corps,  directing  them 
to  repair  to  the  piers  whose  number  he  specifies,  and  in  a  few 
hours  a  whole  division  is  thus  embarked  without  confusion  or 
accident.  The  steamers  are  immediately  unmoored,  actually 
swarming  with  human  ants,  and  with  scarcely  a  revolution  of 
their  immense  wheels  suffer  themselves  to  drift  down  the  current 
like  a  swimmer  who  is  afraid  of  fatiguing  himself.  In  their 
midst  may  be  seen  several  diminutive  steam-tugs,  broad  and 
short,  constantly  in  motion,  going  by  twos  and  threes  to  give  a 
shoulder  lift  as  it  were  to  some  large  craft  that  has  run  aground, 
or  descending  the  river  with  a  long  string  of  barges  and  schoon- 
ers in  tow.  At  last,  on  the  18th  and  19th,  the  first  division  of 
the  army  of  the  Potomac  disembarks  at  Fortress  Monroe,  the 
operation  having  been  retarded  in  consequence  of  the  small  num- 
ber of  landing-places  to  be  found  about  this  locality.  The  second 
division  left  Alexandria  on  the  22d.  A  little  later  two  divisions 
could  be  conveyed  at  once. 

While  the  army  of  the  Potomac  was  thus  temporarily  turning  its 
back  upon  the  enemy,  in  order  to  go  and  attack  him  on  a  differ- 
ent ground,  the  latter,  in  falling  back  upon  the  Rappahannock, 
entirely  destroyed  all  the  lines  of  railway  which  separate  this 
river  from  Washington,  thereby  debarring  himself  from  every 
chance  of  making  an  aggressive  retrograde  movement.  But  the 
valley  of  Virginia  was  occupied  by  an  intrepid  soldier,  T.  J. 
Jackson,  who,  since  the  battle  of  Bull  Eun,  was  only  known  by 
the  name  of  Stonewall  Jackson.  The  military  genius  of  this  man 
made  ample  amends  for  the  eccentricity  of  his  character;  his 
humanity  tempered  the  zeal  of  his  religious  enthusiasm,  which  at 
times  partook  of  the  fanaticism  of  the  old  Puritans,  while  his 
strict  sense  of  justice  and  equitable  dealings  made  the  most  reck- 


618  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

less  tamely  submit  to  his  unbending  severity,  lie  had  accord- 
ingly acquired  a  prodigious  influence  over  his  soldiers,  and  from 
the  first  day  he  led  them  into  battle,  the  old  professor  of  chem- 
istry in  the  military  college  of  Virginia  displayed  that  quickness 
of  perception,  that  decision,  that  energy  in  the  execution  of  his 
plans,  which  constitute  the  true  man  of  war. 

Since  the  battles  of  which  West  Virginia  had  been  the  theatre 
at  the  close  of  1861,  the  Confederates,  weakened  and  discouraged, 
had  made  no  attempt  to  recover  the  ground  they  had  lost  in  that 
part  of  the  country.  All  their  forces  were  concentrated  in  the 
Alleghanies ;  and  Lee,  having  been  summoned  to  Richmond,  had 
been  succeeded,  in  December,  in  the  Shenandoah  valley,  by  Jack- 
son, who  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  so-called  army 
of  the  Monongahela.  Soon  after.  General  Garnett  came  to  join 
this  army  with  Jackson's  old  brigade,  from  which  the  latter  had 
separated  with  great  reluctance,  thus  increasing  the  number  of 
his  forces  to  about  ten  thousand  men.  The  Confederate  general 
determined  to  assume  the  offensive  at  once.  He  left  Winchester 
on  the  1st  of  January  with  Garnett's  troops  and  two  brigades 
commanded  by  General  Loring.  The  weather  was  beautiful  and 
mild,  and  Jackson's  soldiers  crossed  the  gorges  of  the  Alleghanies 
with  a  firm  step,  in  the  hope  of  surprising  the  Federal  garrison 
of  Bath,  a  small  town  situated  near  the  Potomac,  on  the  line  of 
the  Ohio  Railway.  But  the  next  day  they  were  overtaken  by  a 
snow-storm ;  winter,  after  having  long  held  back,  had  at  last 
arrived  in  all  its  rigor,  and  surprised  them  in  the  midst  of  a  diffi- 
cult march.  They  suffered  terribly,  and  only  reached  Bath  to 
see  the  Federals,  who  had  received  timely  warning  of  their  ap- 
proach, stationed  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Jackson,  in- 
flexible of  purpose,  would  not  yield  to  the  cold.  After  destroying 
the  railroad-track,  he  led  his  soldiers  to  Romney,  which  General 
Kelly  evacuated  without  waiting  for  him  ;  and  leaving  a  portion 
of  Loring's  troops  in  this  town,  he  returned  to  Winchester  with 
the  remainder  of  his  army.  The  soldiers  he  brought  back  were 
exhausted,  discouraged,  and  discontented.  The  effects  of  the 
severe  cold  had  reduced  his  effective  force  one-half.  The  volun- 
teers whose  teim  of  service  was  about  to  expire  no  longer  obeyed 
their  commanders;    those  who  re-enlisted  claimed  the  right  to 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  619 

elect  new  officers ;  and  as  the  merits  of  the  candidates  were  freely- 
discussed,  drunkenness  and  want  of  discipline  prevailed  every- 
where. Finally,  the  officers  who  served  under  Jackson,  en- 
couraged by  Loring's  example,  no  longer  hesitated  to  criticise  his 
acts  openly.  So  loud  were  their  complaints  that  Mr.  Da\is,  imi- 
tating the  government  of  Washington,  ordered  Loring  to  evacuate 
Eomney  without  even  apprising  Jackson  of  his  intention.  The 
latter  had  need  of  all  his  patriotism  to  continue  in  the  service  of 
those  who  so  poorly  appreciated  the  difficulties  of  the  task  they 
had  laid  upon  him  when  they  entrusted  him  wth  the  defence  of 
that  important  section  of  country. 

General  McClellan,  being  desirous  to  protect  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railroad  from  any  further  attack,  had,  during  the  short  cam- 
paign of  Jackson,  united  all  the  small  bodies  of  troops  scattered 
along  that  line,  between  Hancock  and  Cheat  River,  in  a  single  com- 
mand. These  troops,  to  which  were  added  a  few  reinforcements, 
were  formed  into  a  division  under  the  orders  of  General  Lander, 
his  personal  friend  and  an  extremely  brave  officer,  who  had  been 
wounded  in  a  skirmish  at  EdAvards's  Ferry  a  few  days  after  the 
battle  of  Ball's  Bluffi  Lander  did  not  remain  inactive.  The 
portion  of  the  railroad  most  exposed  to  the  enemy  was  that  which 
follows  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac  between  Hancock  and 
Cumberland.  It  never  had  been  entirely  reopened,  the  section 
between  Hancock  and  Harper's  Ferry  being  still  in  the  hands  of 
the  Confederates.  Lander  undertook  to  reconstruct  the  Cacapon 
bridge  near  Bath,  and  to  open  the  railroad  between  Cumberland 
and  Hancock,  in  order  to  establish  a  line  of  communication  be- 
tween the  latter  point  and  the  borders  of  the  Ohio.  With  a  view 
jf  protecting  the  laborers,  he  determined  to  dislodge  the  Confed- 
erate brigade  of  Carson  from  the  Blooming  Gap  passes,  above  the 
Cacapon  valley,  whence  they  could  come  down  at  any  time  and 
interrupt  their  work.  He  arrived  on  the  14th  of  February,  at 
daybreak,  with  five  hundred  horsemen,  at  a  little  village  situated 
at  the  foot  of  the  passes,  where  he  hoped  to  surprise  a  detachment 
of  the  enemy.  The  latter,  being  warned  in  time,  had  retired  to- 
wards the  mountain.  Lander  followed  them  ;  but  when  he  sought 
to  attack  the  position  occupied  by  the  Confederates,  his  troopers 
.refused  to  follow  him.     Then  the  brave  Lander,  charging  upon 


620  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  enemy,  followed  only  by  his  staff,  made  a  rebel  colonel 
prisoner  witli  his  own  hand.  Fortunately  for  him,  he  had  only 
a  small  detaohment  of  Carson's  brigade  to  deal  with,  the  brigade 
itself  having  fallen  back  towards  Winchester ;  and  the  approach 
of  two  regiments  of  Federal  infantry  was  sufficient  to  put  the 
Confederates  to  flight,  who,  without  the  arrival  of  this  reinforce- 
ment, having  fully  recovered  from  their  first  surprise,  would  have 
made  Lander  pay  dear  for  his  audacity.  They  left  in  his  hands 
seventy-five  prisoners,  seventeen  of  whom  were  officers.  In  the 
mean  time,  a  small  body  of  troops  had  hoisted  the ,  Federal  flag 
at  Moorefield,  above  Romney,  among  the  gorges  of  the  Upper 
Potomac,  and  this  last  town,  having  been  evacuated  by  Loring, 
was  at  once  occupied  by  Lander.  Jackson,  who  attached  the 
greatest  importance  to  its  possession,  was  contemplating  its  re- 
capture, when  his  attention  was  diverted  by  other  duties.  In- 
deed, the  arrival  of  two  Federal  divisions  at  Harper's  Ferry  on 
the  26th  looked  like  the  prelude  to  a  great  campaign  in  the  valley 
of  Virginia.  McClellan  was  at  Charlestown  in  person.  Jackson 
brought  back  his  troops  to  Winchester  in  great  haste.  He  lingered 
there  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the  movements  of  the  Federals ; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  was  preparing  to  go  up  the  Shenandoah 
as  soon  as  Johnston  should  give  him  the  signal ;  for  the  evacua- 
tion of  Manassas,  which  was  then  in  course  of  execution,  once 
accomplished,  would  necessarily  involve  that  of  Winchester. 

In  the  mean  while,  Lander  had  died ;  he  was  succeeded  by  Gen- 
eral Shields,  a  gallant  officer,*  who  had  already  distinguished 
himself  in  the  Mexican  campaign,  and  his  division,  united  to  that 
of  Banks,  formed  the  fifth  army  corps,  under  command  of  the 
latter  general.  When  Johnston  evacuated  Manassas,  Jackson, 
leaving  Winchester,  proceeded  to  Strasburg,  thence  to  Woodstock, 
and  only  stopped  at  Mount  Jackson,  the  terminus  of  the  Manassas 
Gap  Railway,  situated  on  the  north  branch  of  the  Shenandoah. 
This  movement  towards  the  south  was  followed  by  all  the  small 
bands  operating  among  the  Alleghanies ;  and  the  railroad  between 
Cumberland  and  Hancock  being  entirely  open.  Shields  proceeded 

*  James  Shields  was  a  brigadier-general  of  volunteers  during  the  Mexican 
war.  He  was  brevetted  a  major-general,  and  was  twice  severely  woun  led.  Ha 
was  mustered  out  of  service  at  tlie  close  of  the  war. — Ed. 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  621 

to  Winchester  with  his  division,  to  join  the  first  division  of  Banks, 
of  which  General  Williams  had  assumed  the  command.  Spurred 
on  by  his  ardor,  and  encouraged  by  his  chief,  who  did  not  much 
relish  the  defensive  role  allotted  to  him  in  McClellan's  programme, 
Shields,  on  the  18th  of  March,  pushed  forward  in  the  track  of 
Jackson  as  far  as  beyond  Strasburg,  pressing  close  upon  his  rear- 
guard. But  he  could  neither  continue  this  eccentric  movement 
nor  remain  in  the  isolated  position  in  which  he  found  himself. 
Indeed,  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  when  it  embarked,  had  left  all 
the  care  of  covering  the  line  of  the  Potomac,  against  any  demon- 
stration on  the  part  of  the  enemy,  to  Banks's  corps.  The  two  fine 
divisions  of  which  it  was  composed  were  amply  sufficient  for  this 
purpose,  provided  they  were  exclusively  devoted  to  such  service. 
The  division  of  Williams  was  to  leave  Winchester  on  the  21st  for 
Centreville  and  Manassas,  to  replace  the  troops  about  to  embark 
at  Alexandria.  Shields,  left  alone  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  Avas 
obliged  to  shut  himself  up  in  the  lower  part  of  this  valley,  and 
on  the  20th  of  March,  early  in  the  morning,  he  left  Strasburg, 
with  all  his  forces,  to  return  the  same  day  to  Winchester,  which 
Banks  had  directed  him  to  hold.  Shields  knew  the  ardent  tem- 
perament of  his  adversary ;  and  since  he  could  not  come  up  with 
him  in  order  to  attack  him,  he  determined  to  lay  a  trap  for  him, 
so  as  to  induce  him  to  follow  in  pursuit,  by  giving  to  his  retreat 
the  appearance  of  a  precipitate  flight.  His  pickets  were  suddenly 
withdrawn ;  and  when,  after  a  long  march,  his  worn-out  troops 
reached  Winchester,  he  hurried  them  through  the  town  and  made 
them  encamp  a  few  kilometres  to  the  north,  on  the  Martinsburg 
road.  On  the  morning  of  the  22d  Williams's  division  left  Win- 
chester, where  there  only  remained  a  few  companies,  and  took  up 
its  line  of  march  through  Berry ville,  towards  the  Snicker  Gap 
pass,  in  the  chain  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  The  inhabitants  of  Win- 
chester, nearly  all  secessionists,  hastened  to  send  word  to  Ashby's 
cavalry,  which  had  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Federals,  to  let 
them  know  that  their  town  was  evacuated.  This  information  was 
immediately  forwarded  to  Jackson  by  means  of  signal-fires  kindled 
on  the  mountain-fops.  When  Shields  saw  thick  columns  of  smoke 
rising  above  the  woods,  he  understood  that  his  manoeuvre  had  suc- 
ceeded, and  prepared  to  receive  the  enemy  on  the  ground  he  had 


622  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

Belectecl.  Asliby,  expecting  to  find  an  easy  prey  in  Winchester, 
did  not  wait  for  Jackson,  but  vigorously  attacked  the  Federal  out- 
posts a  few  kilometres  south  of  the  town.  In  order  to  hold  them 
in  check,  Avithout,  however,  revealing  his  strength,  Shields  sent 
the  brigade  of  Kimball  to  take  position  near  the  village  of  Kerns- 
town,  but  only  brought  two  regiments  into  action,  with  which 
Ashby  kept  skirmishing  until  night,  believing  that  he  had  all  the 
available  forces  of  the  Federals  before  him.  In  placing  these 
two  regiments  in  position,  Shields  had  an  arm  shattered  by  a 
splinter  from  a  shell,  but  he  continued  to  give  his  orders  without 
even  allowing  his  wound  to  be  dressed,  and  on  the  following  day, 
despite  his  sufferings,  he  directed  all  the  movements  of  his  division 
from  his  bed. 

Jackson  had  reluctantly  abandoned  a  portion  of  the  Virginia 
valley  and  slowly  fallen  back  before  an  enemy  greatly  superior  in 
number.  As  soon  as  he  was  apprised  of  the  retreat  of  the  Fed- 
erals towards  Winchester  he  could  not  resist  the  desire  to  retrace 
his  steps.  In  the  course  of  a  single  day,  March  2d,  he  travelled, 
with  his  small  army,  the  distance  of  forty  kilometres,  which  sep- 
arates Mount  Jackson  from  the  borders  of  Cedar  Creek,  where  he 
encamped  for  the  night.  He  had^with  him  the  three  brigades  of 
Garnett,  Burks,  and  Fulkerstone ;  Ashby's  brigade  of  cavalry,  to- 
gether with  a  light  battery,  was  already  near  Winchester ;  his  ar- 
tillery consisted  of  twenty-seven  field-pieces ;  but  the  infantry  was 
so  much  reduced  that  his  forces  did  not  amount  to  more  than  four 
thousand  two  hundred,  or  four  thousand  three  hundred  at  the  ut- 
most. On  the  morning  of  the  23d  he  resumed  his  march,  having 
yet  nearly  forty  kilometres  to  travel  before  he  could  reach  Win- 
chester. 

On  the  same  morning  the  three  brigades  of  Shields's  division 
took  position  five  kilometres  in  advance  of  this  town.  The  turn- 
pike road  leading  southward  divides  into  three  branches  on  the 
summit  of  a  hill  situated  this  side  of  KernStown  village,  and 
sloping  down  gradually  to  the  edge  of  a  ravine  running  from 
west  to  east.  The  left  branch  leads  to  Front  Royal,  the  right  to  a 
ford  of  Cedar  Creek  at  the  foot  of  North  Mountain  ;  the  principal 
road  in  the  centre  runs  to  Strasburg.  The  country,  highly  culti- 
vated and  intersected  with  wall  fences  and  small  woods,  is  one  of 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  623 

the  richest  in  the  valley  of  Virginia.  In  the  absence  of  Shields, 
who  was  kept  in  Winchester  by  his  wound,  Colonel  Kimball  had 
assumed  command  of  the  three  brigades.  His  own  was  drawn 
up  in  front  across  the  turnpike  road,  his  right  wing  extending 
opposite  a  wooded  hill  among  the  recesses  of  which  the  ravine 
buried  itself;  still  more  to  the  right  there  were  several  large 
stubble-fields.  The  brigade  of  Sullivan  was  drawn  u]">  on  the 
left,  a  little  in  rear,  and  Tyler's  was  massed  on  the  Winchester 
road.  A  reconnaissance  made  in  the  mornino-  had  demonstrated 
to  the  Federals  that  they  had  only  some  cavalry  and  a  few  pieces 
of  artillery  before  them  ;  and  Banks,  convinced  that  Jackson,  when 
better  informed,  would  not  dare  to  attack  his  seven  or  eight  thou- 
sand men,  had  just  left  for  Washington  when  Ashby's  artillery 
opened  the  fight  along  the  Strasburg  road.  The  latter,  having 
been  informed  of  the  near  approach  of  Jackson,  and  wishing  to 
test  the  strength  of  his  adversaries,  began  the  attack  upon  the  left 
wing  of  the  Federals,  and  soon  compelled  them  to  bring  a  portion 
of  Sullivan's  brigade  into  line.  But  the  remainder  of  their  forces 
being  concealed  by  a  rise  in  the  ground,  Ashby  still  believed  that 
there  were  only  four  or  five  regiments  before  him,  and  forwarded 
this  false  information  to  Jackson  Avhen  the  latter  reached  the 
village  of  Kernstown,  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The 
Confederate  foot-soldiers  were  worn  out  by  their  long  and  rapid 
march,  but  their  commander  was  in  the  habit  of  not  considering 
their  fatigue.  Believiuij  he  has  a  chance  of  crushinsr  a  detach- 
ment  of  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  of  the  enemy's  troops^ 
he  alloA\"S  his  soldiers  but  a  few  moments'  rest,  and  immediately 
after  leads  them  into  action.  Fulkerstone,  on  the  left,  Garnett,  in 
the  centre,  and  Burks,  on  the  right,  are  all  deployed  in  a  single 
line  of  battle,  which  Jackson  leads  against  the  position  occupied 
by  Kimball's  brigade,  leaving  to  Ashby  the  care  of  holding  the 
left  wing  of  the  Federals  in  check.  His  batteries  occupy  the 
wooded  hill  we  have  mentioned,  and  open  a  murderous  fire,  to 
which  the  Federal  artillery,  being  more  exposed,  replies  with  dif- 
ficulty. Fulkerstone  stretches  out  into  the  fields  which  open  on 
his  left,  and  threatens  to  flank  the  extremity  of  the  Union  line. 
It  is  four  o'clock.  Kimball,  in  order  to  parry  this  danger,  sum- 
mons Tyler's   brigade,  some  of  whose  regiments   take  position 


624  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

on  his  right.  The  battle  rages  along  the  whole  line.  Garnett, 
with  the  celebrated  brigade  he  has  the  honor  of  commanding, 
emero;es  from  the  wood  alons;  the  edo-e  of  which  the  Confed- 
erate  artillery  is  posted.  Kimball  causes  his  brigade  to  make  an 
analogous  movement,  and  these  two  forces,  both  uncovered,  obsti- 
nately fire  at  each  other  at  a  distance  of  two  hundred  metres. 
On  the  right  of  the  Federals,  Tyler  has  not  only  checked  the 
movement  of  Fulkerstone's  brigade,  but  outflanks  it  in  his  turn ; 
on  the  left,  Sullivan  easily  keeps  Ashby  in  check,  although  com- 
pelled to  send  two  regiments  to  support  the  centre,  which  is 
closely  pressed. 

At  this  place  the  two  lines  are  separated  by  a  large  stone  wall. 
Each  party  is  endeavoring  to  take  possession  of  this  sheltering 
parapet ;  but  Garnett,  with  his  Virginians,  is  the  first  to  reach  it. 
The  Eighty-fourth  Pennsylvania,  led  by  the  brave  Colonel  Mur- 
ray, tries  to  take  it  from  him,  and  rushes  to  the  charge  despite  a 
terrific  fire;  it  arrives  within  twenty  metres  of  the  prize;  but 
Murray  is  shot  dead;  his  soldiers  reel,  fall  back,  and  scatter, 
leaving  the  ground  covered  with  the  dead  and  wounded. 

Jackson  has  at  last  discovered  his  error ;  but  still  retaining  full 
confidence  in  his  soldiers,  he  hopes  to  be  yet  able  to  wrest  the 
victory  from  an  enemy  vastly  superior  in  number.  But  while 
he  brings  his  last  reserves  into  action,  Sullivan's  troops  and  the 
remainder  of  Tyler's  brigade  come  into  line.  Kimball  makes 
one  more  effort  to  carry  the  position  occupied  by  Garnett.  His 
artillery  covers  the  Confederate  line  with  shells,  and  the  second 
charge  succeeds  better  than  the  first.  The  Stonewall  brigade, 
being  out  of  cartridges,  abandons  the  wall  it  has  so  well  defended. 
The  Federals  take  possession  of  it,  rush  past  it,  and  penetrating 
the  enemy's  line  threaten  to  entirely  cut  off  Fulkerstone,  who  is 
becoming  more  and  more  compromised.  It  is  in  vain  that  Jack- 
son leads  his  soldiers  back  to  the  charge,  accustomed  as  they 
are  to  follow  him  through  every  danger;  he  cannot  recover  the 
ground  lost.  A  piece  of  artillery  has  remained  in  the  enemy's 
hands,  and  Fulkerstone,  who  is  falling  back  in  his  turn,  is  also 
obliged  to  abandon  one ;  finally,  at  the  extremity  of  the  line,  the 
Federals  under  Sullivan  have  assumed  the  offensive,  and  are  driv- 
ing Ashby  before  them,  whose  guns,  falling  back  farther  and  far- 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  G25 

ther,  announce  to  Jackson  that  the  turnpike  will  soon  be  cut  off 
from  him.  It  is  near  six  o'clock ;  night  comes  on,  and  the  Con- 
federates have  lost  the  battle.  Jackson  ling-ers  amono;  the  last 
combatants,  but  cannot  prevent  his  soldiers  from  giving  way  in 
every  direction  before  the  efforts  of  the  Federals.  They  fall  back 
while  still  preserving  their  ranks,  and  often  facing  about  to  fire, 
then  soon  disappear  in  the  darkness,  leaving  the  battle-field  cov- 
ered with  their  wounded. 

The  bloody  battle  of  Kernstown,  which  did  honor  to  the  two 
small  armies,  cost  both  parties  dear.  The  Federals  had  one  hun- 
dred and  three  men  killed  and  four  hundred  and  forty-one 
wounded ;  the  Confederates  lost  four  hundred  and  seventy-five 
men  in  all. 

Jackson  bivouacked  not  far  from  the  field  of  battle.  His  cour- 
age had  raised  him  still  higher  in  the  estimation  of  his  troops ; 
but  he  was  inconsolable  on  account  of  his  reverse  and  the  error 
that  had  caused  it.  He  was  not,  however,  in  a  condition  to  resume 
the  fight,  and  on  the  following  day  he  reached  once  more  the  bor- 
ders of  Cedar  Creek.  On  the  same  clay  Banks  returned  to  Win- 
chester with  a  portion  of  Williams's  division,  but  had  no  idea  of 
pursuing  Jackson.  The  vigor  displayed  by  the  Confederates  led 
him  to  believe  that  he  had  about  ten  thousand  men  in  front  of 
him.  He  could  not  believe  that  his  adversary  would  have  ven- 
tured so  far  without  some  reinforcement  within  his  reach ;  and 
after  following  him  for  a  few  kilometres,  he  brought  back  his 
troops  to  Winchester,  beyond  which  his  instructions  did  not  per- 
mit him  to  go. 

Notwithstanding  this  reverse,  Jackson's  movement  was  not 
without  results.  It  compelled  Banks  to  concentrate  once  more 
his  two  divisions  in  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  to  leave 
the  care  of  defending  Manassas  to  other  troops.  The  Confederate 
general  was  thus  preluding  the  operations  in  which  a  few  months 
after,  and  on  the  same  ground,  he  was  to  distinguish  himself.  It 
was,  in  fact,  by  a  series  of  bold  moves  in  the  valley  of  Virginia 
that  Jackson  first,  and  others  after  him,  menaced  the  Federals 
and  filled  the  government  of  Washington  with  alarms  that  in- 
variably betrayed  it  into  the  adoption  of  unfortunate  measures. 

These  alarms,  as  we  have  observed  before,  were  exhibited  at 
Vol.  I.— 40 


626  THE  CIVIL    WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

the  bare  idea  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  contemplating  a  depart- 
ure for  a  theatre  of  action  remote  from  the  capital.  General 
McClellan,  although  determined  to  guarantee  the  safety  of  Wash- 
ington as  fully  as  possible,  could  never  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  strategists  of  the  cabinet,  whose  advice  controlled  Mr. 
Lincoln,  as  to  the  manner  of  defending  the  capital.  From  the 
moment  that  the  army  of  the  Potomac  concentrated  all  its  avail- 
able forces  upon  any  given  point  for  the  purpose  of  undertaking 
some  great  offensive  movement,  its  detachments  and  accessory 
corps  had  to  confine  themselves  to  the  strictest  defensive  every- 
where else.  When,  therefore,  this  army  embarked  for  Fortress 
Monroe,  all  that  the  home  troops  had  to  do  was  to  prevent  any 
aggressive  movement  of  the  enemy  against  Washington  or  the 
Maryland  frontier.  West  Virginia,  being  impracticable  for  large 
armies,  could  take  care  of  herself.  In  order  to  close  the  Virginia 
valley,  to  protect  the  crossings  of  the  Potomac  at  Harper's  Ferry 
and  Williamsport,  and  to  cover  the  Ohio  Railway,  it  was  sufficient 
to  occupy  strongly  the  central  position  of  Winchester.  In  short, 
in  order  to  afford  entire  security  to  the  capital,  it  was  necessary, 
without  counting  depots  and  non-combatants,  to  establish  two 
strong  garrisons,  one  in  the  powerful  works  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Potomac,  and  the  other  in  the  Manassas  lines  of  defences,  re- 
constructed and  turned  round,  so  as  to  cover  the  approaches  to 
Washington.  But  no  personal  or  party  considerations  should 
have  been  allowed  to  interfere  with  what  ought  to  be  the  sole  and 
paramount  object  of  war,  the  destruction  of  the  enemy.  There 
should  have  been  no  desire  for  compromise  between  men  or 
their  different  plans  of  campaign.  The  satisfaction  of  occupying 
the  whole  country  south  of  Washington  should  have  been  fore- 
gone for  a  while  longer,  and  the  Confederate  guerillas  allowed  to 
remain  in  possession  of  it. 

The  President,  who,  six  months  before,  had  suddenly  taken 
away  the  command  of  the  great  department  of  the  Missouri  from 
General  Fremont,  had  just  created  a  new  one  in  West  Virginia 
expressly  for  him,  called  "  the  Mountain  Department."  This  de- 
partment had  been  so  curiously  marked  out  that  Fremont  was 
unable  to  find  an  enemy  within  its  prescribed  limits,  and  yet  the 
President  could  not  withstand  the  representations  of  those  who 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  627 

M-^ere  urging  him  to  dismember  the  army  of  the  Potomac  for  the 
purpose  of  adding  unnecessary  strength  to  this  new  army.  Blenk- 
er's  strong  division,  composed  exclusively  of  German  soldiers  or 
men  of  German  origin,  was,  for  no  other  reason,  taken  away  from 
General  McClellan  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  for  Fort  Monroe, 
and  transferred  to  Fremont.  General  Banks,  with  his  twenty-five 
thousand  men  of  the  fifth  corps,  wa^  kept  in  the  valley  of  Virginia  by 
the  fears  which  Jackson  and  his  eight  thousand  soldiers  created  in 
Washington,  and  the  authorities  only  waited  for  the  departure  of 
McClellan  to  convert  this  corps  into  another  independent  army. 
And  yet  neither  Fremont's  troops,  with  no  enemy  in  front  of 
them,  nor  Blenker's  ten  thousand  men,  sent  in  search  of  the  for- 
mer, nor  Banks's  twenty-five  thousand,  to  whom  Jackson  could 
only  oppose  eight  thousand  soldiers  shaken  and  demoralized  by 
unsuccessful  fighting,  were  considered  by  the  President  as  forming 
part  of  the  defenders  of  Washington.  He  regarded  them  as  sepa- 
rate armies,  destined  to  wage  war  on  their  own  account,  and  de- 
sired to  provide  for  the  protection  of  the  capital  from  forces  out- 
side their  organization. 

General  McClellan  had  not  foreseen  these  new  military  com- 
binations. He  thought  that,  at  a  time  when  the  entire  nation  was 
giving  so  many  proofs  of  patriotism,  those  who  governed  it  would 
be  able  to  resist  the  influence  of  idle  fears  and  intrio-uino;  ambition. 
The  troops  he  left  behind  him  on  the  day  of  his  embarkation, 
within  reach  of  and  ready  to  defend  Washington,  amounted  to 
seventy-three  thousand  four  hundred  and  fifty-six  men  and  one 
hundred  and  nine  pieces  of  field-artillery,  including  Banks's  corps 
and  Blenker's  division.  It  is  true  that  out  of  this  number  were 
to  be  deducted  the  non-combatants,  who  always  detract  from  the 
real  strength  of  a  large  army.  There  were  nearly  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  recruits  from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  who 
had  not  yet  left  their  respective  States ;  and  about  five  thousand 
men  were  engaged  in  keeping  guard  over  the  raihvays.  The 
twenty-two  thousand  men  comprising  the  garrison  of  Washington 
had  nearly  all  recently  enlisted,  and  were  quite  inexperienced. 
In  short,  out  of  the  twenty-nine  thousand  or  thirty  thousand  men 
constitutino;  the  active  forces  of  Banks  and  Blenker,  from  fifteen 
thousand  to  eighteen  thousand  had  to  be  left  in  the  valley  of  Vir- 


628  THE  CIVIL   WAR  IN  AMERICA. 

ginia.  Nevertheless,  after  making  all  these  deductions,  it  was 
easy  to  mass  a  corps  of  from  twenty  thousand  to  twenty-five  thou- 
sand well-trained  soldiers  at  Manassas,  and  to  place  in  second  line, 
in  the  fortifications  of  Washington,  twenty-five  thousand  or  thirty 
thousand  soldiers,  raw,  no  doubt,  but  quite  able  to  make  a  good 
figure  behind  a  parapet.  These  were  more  than  were  needed  to 
protect  the  capital  until  the  day  when,  like  an  electric  cloud  which 
attracts  another  of  an  opposite  character,  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
should  have  drawn  the  Confederate  army  to  itself,  when  all  dan- 
ger to  the  Federal  capital  would  have  ceased.  This  moment  once 
arrived,  Blenker's  division  could  have  been  removed  without  in- 
convenience from  Washington,  and  sent  as  a  reinforcement  to 
Fremont's  army. 

General  McClellan  was  obliged  to  submit  to  the  new  require- 
ments of  the  government.  On  leaving  Alexandria  the  1st  of  April 
for  Fortress  Monroe,  he  left  eighteen  thousand  five  hundred  men 
as  a  corps  of  observation  between  Manassas  and  Warrenton,  and 
one  thousand  five  hundred  on  the  Lower  Potomac ;  the  garrison 
of  Washington  was  soon  to  be  raised  to  eighteen  thousand  men, 
with  twenty-two  pieces  of  field-artillery.  He  had  not  dared  to 
strip  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  where  thirty-five  thousand 
men,  comprising  the  reserves,  were  massed ;  but  these  troops,  al- 
ready organized  and  partly  trained,  could,  at  the  slightest  intima- 
tion of  danger,  be  summoned  to  Washington  if  the  inexperienced 
soldiers  forming  its  garrison  were  not  deemed  sufficient  by  the  mil- 
itary authorities. 

The  government  decided  otherwise.  The  President  again  com- 
mitted the  wrong  of  allowing  McClellan  to  depart  with  assurance!" 
which  he  immediately  falsified.  While  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
was  embarking,  full  of  confidence  and  hope,  and  happy  at  being 
delivered  from  a  long-protracted  inaction,  many  people  in  Wash- 
ington still  felt,  or  pretended  to  feel,  seriously  alarmed  on  seeing 
the  capital  of  the  Union  thus  stripped.  It  was  an  easy  matter 
to  revive  the  old  objections  of  the  President  against  the  plan 
which  was  at  last  being  executed  by  his  orders.  There  happened 
to  be  two  generals  in  whom  he  reposed  the  utmost  confidence,  who 
declared  that,  in  case  of  an  attack,  the  garrison  of  Washington 
would  not  be  sufficient ;  and  although  they  had  added  that  the 


HAMPTON  ROADS.  629 

ca])ital  was  not  menaced,  ]\Ir.  Lincoln  determined  to  ward  oft' this 
imaginary  danger  by  an  act  of  authority. 

On  the  3d  of  April  the  great  operation  of  transporting  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  was  considerably  advanced,  and  promised 
entire  success.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  belated  regiments, 
no  troops  remained  in  the  neighborhood  of  Alexandria  but  Mc- 
Dowell's corps ;  but  this  corps  was  the  finest  in  the  army ;  it  pre- 
sented an  effective  force  of  thirty-eight  thousand  four  hundred 
and  fifty-four  soldiers  of  all  arms,  well  drilled,  thoroughly 
equipped,  admirably  commanded,  divided  into  three  divisions  of 
infantry,  four  regiments  of  cavalry,  and  twelve  batteries  of  ar- 
tillery. Embarked  entire  and  at  once  upon  transports  which  had 
at  last  been  collected  in  sufficient  number,  while  the  remainder  of 
the  army  was  advancing  through  the  peninsula,  between  the  James 
and  the  York  Rivers,  it  was  to  land  on  the  north  bank  of  that 
arm  of  the  sea,  so  as  to  cause  the  fall  of  all  the  defences  erected 
for  the  purpose  of  closing  its  entrance.  The  fulfilment  of  the 
task  assigned  to  this  corps  was,  in  the  judgment  of  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  indispensable  to  secure  the  success  of  a  rapid  campaign. 
Yet  just  as  he  was  about  to  embark,  McDowell  received  an  order 
from  the  President  directing  him  to  remain,  with  all  his  forces, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Washington ;  while  a  laconic  despatch  in- 
formed McClellan  that  these  troops,  for  whose  arrival  he  had  been 
waiting  so  impatiently,  were  taken  from  his  command.  Since  the 
operations  had  commenced  he  had  thus  been  deprived  of  nearly 
one-third  of  that  army  he  had  formed  with  so  much  care,  and  for 
the  perfect  organization  of  which  he  had  even  sacrificed  a  portion 
of  his  popularity. 

The  government  of  Washington,  by  its  want  of  skill,  from  the 
outset  compromised  the  success  of  the  decisive  campaign  for 
which  the  patriotic  people  of  the  North  had  begrudged  it  neither 
men  nor  money. 

In  the  next  volume  the  reader  will  see  how  dearly  this  error  cost. 


APPENDIX  TO  VOL.  I. 


IN'OTES. 


NOTE  A,  Page  29. 

We  append  here,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  may  feel  interested  in 
the  subject,  a  more  detailed  description  of  the  functions  of  the  various 
departments  and  their  respective  positions  in  the  staffs  of  the  Ameri- 
can armies. 

The  province  of  the  adjutant-general  comprised  ; — the  recruiting  of 
regiments,  their  organization,  their  interior  movements,  their  rela- 
tions with  the  special  authoi'ities  of  States,  the  enrolling  of  militia 
and  volunteers  in  the  Federal  service,  the  condition  of  the  men  and 
officers,  the  promotions,  casualties,  and  resignations,  and,  finally,  the 
creation  and  distribution  of  commands.  All  correspondence  with 
bodies  of  troops  in  the  field  was  conducted  by  him ;  he  transmitted 
the  orders  of  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War  to  the  generals 
in  command,  and  the  latter  addressed  all  their  reports  to  him. 

The  assistant  adjutant-generals,  besides  special  duties  which  might 
be  entrusted  to  them — such  as  the  organization  of  new  regiments — 
were  attached  to  the  staffs  of  the  army  or  army  corps  of  every  division 
and  brigade.  They  prepared,  received,  and  classified  all  the  reports, 
regulated  the  commands,  transmitted  all  the  records  relating  to  the 
personnel  of  the  army  corps,  and  kept  up  with  them  the  general  cor- 
respondence ;  they  thus  descended  from  oi'ganization  to  organization, 
until  the  regiment  itself  was  reached,  the  adjutant  of  which,  having 
control  of  all  administrative  operations,  was  in  direct  communication 
with  the  assistant  adjutant-general  of  brigade. 

The  functions  of  the  quartermaster's  department,  which  at  a  later 
period  were  distributed  among  nine  offices  into  which  the  department 
was  subdivided,  comprised  the  following  services :  the  purchase  and 
distribution  among  the  army  corps  of  all  the  effects  of  the  men,  equip- 

631 


632  APPENDIX. 

ments,  tents,  tools,  gamp  furniture,  cooking  utensils,  transportation  by 
land  and  water — that  is  to  say,  the  hiring  or  purchase  of  vessels  con- 
veying troops,  war  material,  or  provisions  on  the  high  seas,  lakes,  or 
rivers,  and  even  the  equipment  of  military  flotillas  on  inland  waters 
independently  of  the  navy ;  the  direction  of  the  several  maritime 
services,  of  all  telegraph  lines  and  railways  which  the  armies  had 
taken  possession  of;  contracts  with  other  railways  for  every  kind  of 
transportation ;  the  construction  and  distribution  of  all  wagons,  field- 
forges,  ambulances,  and  harness ;  the  purchase  of  all  animals  required 
for  that  service,  and  the  repairing  of  roads ;  the  purchase  and  distri- 
bution of  fuel,  forage,  straw,  and  stationery ;  the  construction  and 
supervision  of  barracks,  hospitals,  stables,  bridges,  magazines,  and 
wharfs  for  lauding ;  the  renting  of  army  quarters ;  in  short,  all  the 
expenditures  of  the  armies  not  under  the  special  care  of  some  other 
department.  All  these  operations  were  effected  by  means  of  contracts 
with  private  individuals,  through  the  medium  of  the  department  at 
Washington,  or  the  various  quartermasters  who  exercised  a  control- 
ling authority  in  that  branch  of  the  service,  either  at  the  headquarters 
of  an  army  or  at  a  central  depot,  for  that  department  had  no  work- 
shops under  its  direction.  The  superintendence  of  these  operations 
was  entrusted  to  special  officers,  who  acted,  some  as  inspectors  to 
verify  accounts,  and  others  in  the  capacity  of  paymasters.  The  latter, 
having  to  settle  all  the  authorized  expenses  in  the  different  branches 
of  that  department,  had  to  give  bonds  as  a  guarantee  for  the  proper 
disbursement  of  the  large  sums  of  money  which  they  received 
directly  from  the  government  at  Washington. 

The  ordnance  and  subsistence  departments,  Avhose  functions  we 
have  already  sufiiciently  described,  were  organized  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  preceding,  the  inspection  and  disbursements  being  made  in 
the  corps  itself  by  officers  especially  detailed  for  that  service.  The 
principal  officer  who  represented  each  of  these  three  branches  of  the 
service  at  the  War  Department  attained  that  position  by  regular  pro- 
motion, and  could  not  be  deprived  of  it  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Secre- 
tary like  a  simple  employe.  A  portion  of  the  officei's  of  this  corps 
negotiated  the  contracts  and  saw  to  their  proper  execution,  inspected 
and  received  the  supplies,  and  took  charge  of  the  Federal  arsenals. 
The  others  were  attached  to  the  armies  in  the  field  and  to  their 
depots,  forming,  from  the  regiment  up,  an  official  bond  of  communi- 
cation through  which  all  matters  connected  with  their  departments 
passed  before  reaching  their  chief  at  Washington,  under  the  simple 
supervision  of  the  commander  of  each  body  of  troops. 


APPENDIX.  •  633 

These  three  branches  of  the  admiuistrative  department  were  alone 
empowered  to  conclude  heavy  contracts. 

The  surgeons,  taken  from  the  doctors  already  possessed  of  diplomas, 
were  fittached  to  the  regiments,  but  did  not  constitute  a  component 
part  of  their  staffs  ;  at  all  the  general  headquarters  there  were  brigade 
and  division  surgeons  above  them  ;  and,  finally,  the  surgeon -general 
of  the  army.  Those  placed  in  attendance  in  hospitals  were  under 
their  direction,  and  received  their  supplies  partly  from  the  quarter- 
master and  partly  from  the  commissary  of  subsistence. 

The  paymasters  were  employes  of  the  War  Department,  and  not  of 
the  Treasury,  inasmuch  as  each  administrative  department  kept  sepa- 
rate accounts,  and  was  itself  the  disburser  of  the  funds  required  to  pay 
the  expenses  it  had  authorized ;  they  had  only  to  settle  the  pay,  the 
bounties,  and  a  few  trifling  expenses ;  consequently  none  of  them  re- 
mained with  the  army ;  mere  birds  of  jiassage,  they  made  their 
appearance  at  certain  stated  periods,  settled  the  pay-accounts  accord- 
ing to  the  company-rolls,  and  disappeared  immediately  after. 

We  will  sum  up  this  sketch  by  showing,  first,  what  the  composition 
of  the  headquarters  of  a  general-in-chief,  such  as  that  of  Scott  in 
Mexico,  is,  and  then  the  organization  and  interior  administration  of 
the  regiment.  We  will  thus  be  spared  the  necessity  of  recurring  to 
these  details  when  we  shall  have  to  speak  of  the  volunteer  armies 
which  were  foi'med  on  the  same  model. 

All  the  members  of  the  headquarters  were  designated  as  aides-de- 
camp, and  were  distinguished  by  the  addition  to  their  titles  of  the 
three  letters  A.  D.  C,  although  their  functions  differed. 

Near  the  general  there  was,  first  of  all,  the  chief  of  staff,  the  inter- 
mediate agent  between  the  former  and  his  principal  officers,  but  hav- 
ing no  particular  command  himself.  Under  his  immediate  direction 
there  were  the  personal  aides  to  the  general,  who,  apart  from  the 
special  missions  entrusted  to  them,  had  no  other  duties  to  perform 
than  the  name  indicated,  to  accompany  him,  carry  his  orders,  observe 
what  he  could  not  see  for  himself,  and  receive  all  the  communications 
addressed  directly  to  him. 

All  that  depends  upon  the  chief  of  staff  with  us  was  left  to  the 
care  of  the  assistant  adjutant-general,  and,  in  a  small  portion,  to  the 
inspector-general  of  the  army. 

The  administrative  personnel  was  represented  by  the  quartermaster- 
general,  the  chief  officer  of  ordnance,  the  chief  commissary,  and  the 
surgeon-general.  These  heads  of  the  administrative  branches  of  the 
service  had  under  their  respective  commands  some  officers  (or  physi- 


634  APPENDIX. 

cians)  and  non-commissioned  officers,  but  no  troops.  The  teamsters, 
laborers,  and  hospital  nurses  were  civilians  hired  for  that  purpose,  or 
soldiers  temporarily  detached  from  their  regiments. 

At  headquarters  the  special  arms  of  the  service  had  each  a  chief 
surrounded  by  his  own  particular  staff,  such  as  the  chief  of  artillery, 
the  chief  of  engineers,  and  the  chief  of  topographical  engineers. 
Sometimes,  with  armies  in  the  field,  the  cavalry  were  also  under  a 
special  commander,  called  the  chief  of  cavalry. 

The  police  of  the  army  was  under  the  supervision  of  a  provost- 
marshal,  while  the  management  of  courts-martial  and  the  examina- 
tion of  all  legal  questions  were  sometimes  delegated  to  a  lawyer  styled 
judge-advocate,  who  was  invested  with  provisional  military  rank. 

Let  us  now  proceed  from  the  first  to  the  last  degree,  from  the  gen- 
eral headquarters  to  the  regimental,  or  rather  the  battalion  staff;  we 
shall  find  that  their  administrative  functions  were  very  limited,  which 
increased  so  much  the  importance  and  the  duties  of  the  special  corps 
of  the  service  detailed  to  assist  in  all  that  concerns  the  interior  regi- 
men— a  service  from  which  such  officers  are  excluded  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  French  regiment.  In  the  American  regiment  there  are  no 
regimental  accounts,  no  fond,  no  council  of  administration.  There 
are  only  two  employes  of  the  administrative  department,  the  ordnance- 
sergeant,  whose  duty  was  not  only  to  attend  to  the  repairing  of  arms, 
but  also  to  ascertain  their  number  and  condition,  to  address  all  re- 
quests for  arms  and  ammunition  to  the  officials  of  the  department, 
who  were  his  immediate  superiors,  and  to  deliver  them  to  the  regi- 
ment. The  other  was  the  quartermaster  of  the  regiment,  who,  acting 
under  the  immediate  authority  of  the  brigade-quartermaster,  delivered 
to  the  regiment  the  personal  effects,  all  made  up,  which  he  had  re- 
quested and  received  from  the  central  depot.  The  regiment,  unless  it 
formed  no  part  of  a  brigade,  had  no  commissary  of  subsistence,  the 
commanders  of  companies  keeping  direct  accounts  with  the  commis- 
sary of  brigade.  If,  at  any  time,  the  opportunity  presented  itself  for 
practicing  certain  economies  in  the  expenses  of  the  regiment,  especially 
as  regarded  the  companies'  rations,  the  officers  had  absolute  control  of 
the  matter. 

All  the  records,  writings,  reports  of  condition  and  administrative 
control,  were  in  the  custody  of  the  adjutant  of  the  regiment,  whose 
functions  resembled  those  of  our  major  ;  he  had  charge  of  all  the 
regimental  accounts.  On  one  hand,  he  had  to  verify  the  reports  for- 
nished  by  the  commanders  of  companies,  and  to  examine  their  several 
books ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  to  check  and  register  the  operations 


APPENDIX.  635 

of  the  quartermaster,  the  ordnance  sergeant,  and  the  supplies  fur- 
nished by  the  brigade  commissary  of  subsistence  for  the  mess  of 
companies  and  the  hospital. 

In  an  administrative  point  of  view,  the  regiment  had  no  separate 
existence ;  there  was  no  community  of  interest  except  in  the  compa- 
nies among  the  men  who  were  fed  from  the  same  camp-kettle. 


NOTE  B,  Page  82.     • 

If  any  one  wishes  to  form  an  idea  of  the  irremediable  demoraliza- 
tion that  slavery  entails,  there  is  no  necessity  to  read  romances  or 
pleadings,  but  only  the  simple  diary  kept  in  Georgia,  on  the  planta- 
tion of  her  husband,  by  an  author  who  bears  a  name  illustrious  in  the 
dramatic  annals  of  England,  Miss  Kemble.  It  is  the  naked  truth, 
such  as  would  strike  an  observer  free  from  local  prejudices  ;  the  as- 
tonishments and  the  hopes,  even,  expressed  by  the  author,  are  evidences 
of  her  good  faith.  She  was  struck  at  first  by  the  contrast  between  the 
magnificence  of  nature  and  the  human  wretchedness  to  be  seen  there. 
It  was  only  by  degrees,  however,  that  she  found  out  all  the  evils  of 
which  slavery  was  the  source.  Being  seized  with  charitable  enthusi- 
asm at  each  sight  of  the  picture,  she  wished  to  apply  some  remedy  to 
it,  but  each  time  she  stumbled  against  some  new  obstacle.  It  appeared 
to  her  that,  the  power  of  the  master  being  so  great,  he  might  have  used 
it  in  correcting  the  abuses  of  slavery ;  but  on  the  one  hand,  the 
prejudices,  the  interests,  the  institutions,  which  fettered  the  hands  of 
the  masters,  and  on  the  other  the  despondency  which  has  a  pros- 
trating effect  upon  the  strongest  minds  when  doomed  to  a  hopeless 
life  of  servitude,  neutralized  all  her  best  intentions.  She  acknow- 
ledged at  last  that  slavery  is  almost  as  wretched  under  a  good  master 
as  under  a  bad  one.  She  became  convinced,  by  constantly-recurring 
examples,  of  the  intelligence  of  the  negro  and  his  aptitude  for  intel- 
lectual improvement,  which  place  him  on  the  same  level  with  our- 
eelves.  The  moral  degradation  attributed  to  him,  which  was  made  the 
miserable  pretext  for  his  servitude,  was  only  the  natural  consequence, 
as  may  be  seen  in  every  page  of  the  journal,  of  the  condition  to  which 
he  had  been  reduced. 

A  single  word  placed  at  the  beginning  of  the  book  allows  us  to 
guess  what  was  the  cause  which  induced  the  frightful  denouement  of 
the  pictures,  which  the  author  brings  abruptly  to  a  close  when  leaving 
the  plantation  for  ever.    An  unholy  day  arrived  when  all  the  slaves  were 


636  APPENDIX. 

sold  at  auction.  All  the  families  who  had  become  attached  to  that 
estate  through  their  very  sufferings,  which  the  authoress  has  made  us 
acquainted  with,  were  scattered  under  the  hammer  of  the  auctioneer. 
This  simple  book  bears  most  conclusive  evidence  that  all  that  has 
been  said  in  Europe  about  the  horrors  of  slavery,  and  of  its  influence 
upon  the  morals  of  the  whites,  was  far  below  the  truth ;  and  if  we 
have  not  dwelt  more  at  length  upon  this  subject,  it  is  because  it 
seemed  useless  to  us  to  plead  in  favor  of  a  cause  already  triumphant. 


NOTE  C,  Page  89. 

Below  is  a  table,  in  round  numbers,  according  to  the  census  of  1860, 
of  the  population  of  the  principal  cities  in  the  slave  States.  In  esti- 
mating the  forces  of  the  Confederacy,  it  will  be  necessary  to  omit 
from  this  list  four  of  the,  five  first-mentioned  cities,  which  were  never 
beyond  the  Federal  authority.     They  are  marked  with  asterisks : 

*  Baltimore 212,000  inhabitants. 

New  Orleans 169,000  " 

*  St.  Louis 152,000  " 

*  Louisville 70,000  " 

■^Washington     .        .        .        ...         .  61,000  " 

Charleston 51,000  " 

Eichmond 38,000  " 

Mobile  29,000  " 

Memphis 23,000  " 

Savannah 22,000  " 

Wilmington 21,000  " 

Petersburg 18,000  " 

Nashville 17,000 


NOTE  D,  Page  105. 

These  details,  with  many  others  relative  to  the  Confederate  army, 
are  taken  from  a  book  entitled  "  Thirteen  Months  in  the  Rebel 
Army,"  by  W.  G.  Stevenson,  published  in  1863.  It  describes  most 
vividly  the  situation  of  the  South  at  the  commencement  of  the  war. 
The  author  relates,  with  a  degree  of  simplicity  which  saves  him  from 
all  suspicion  of  exaggeration,  his  forced  enlistment  in  the  Confederate 
army,  the  positions  he  filled,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  in  the  infantry, 


APPENDIX.  637 

the  administrative  departments,  the  cavalry,  the  hospitals,  and  finally 
the  adventures  through  which  he  escaped  from  those  who  compelled 
him  to  fight  against  relatives  and  friends.  Notwithstanding  the  awk- 
ward position  in  which  he  found  himself,  and  his  legitimate  aversion 
for  the  government  whose  tyranny  he  had  to  undergo,  he  does  not 
cherish  ill  feelings  against  any  one,  and  pays  a  tribute  of  respect  to 
the  personal  qualities  of  the  generals  whom  he  had  known.  Fai 
from  despising  the  South,  he  makes  known  to  his  fellow-countrymen 
the  resources,  the  courage,  and  the  energy  of  their  adversaries,  in  order 
that  they  may  redouble  their  efforts  to  put  an  end  to  the  war. 


NOTE  E,  Page  256. 

It  would  fill  an  entire  library  to  collect  together  all  that  has  been 
written  in  America  on  the  battle  of  Bull  Run ;  its  slightest  incidents 
have  been  discussed,  commented  upon,  and  presented  under  the  most 
different  phases.  It  has  called  forth  the  most  fantastic  descriptions 
on  the  part  of  a  crowd  of  eye-witnesses  whose  judgment  and  vision 
had  been  singularly  affected  by  the  excitement  of  the  combat  so  novel 
to  them.  It  would  be  impossible  to  unravel  the  truth  from  among  so 
many  contradictory  assertions  if  we  had  not  as  guides  the  official 
reports  of  both  parties,  remarkable  for  their  completeness  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  agree  with  each  other.  This  labor  has  been 
facilitated  for  us  by  the  works  of  two  American  writers,  Mr.  Swin- 
ton,  who  has  written  two  accounts  of  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  with  his 
wonted  sagacity,  and  Mr.  Lossing,  the  prolific  draughtsman  and  scru- 
pulous narrator. 

Finally,  the  author  himself  accompanied  McDowell  a  few  months 
after  the  battle,  when  the  latter  visited  for  the  first  time  since  the 
action  the  scene  of  his  defeat ;  and  he  thus  received  on  the  spot,  from 
the  mouth  of  the  principal  actors,  who  recognized,  with  emotions  easy 
t(-~  understand,  here  the  route  on  which  they  had  at  first  been  vic- 
torious, there  the  point  where  some  of  their  bravest  companions  had 
fallen,  and  farther  on  a  trifling  break  in  the  ground,  insignificant  in 
appearance,  wliich  marked  the  spot  where  the  rout  of  their  troops  had 
commenced. 


638  APPENDIX. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  I^OTE 

RELATIVE  TO  THE  PRINCIPAL  WORKS   CONSULTED   BY 
THE  AUTHOR. 

'  Without  pretending  to  give  a  complete  list  of  the  sources  from 
which  the  author  has  derived  his  information  in  writing  the  first 
volume  of  this  history,  it  is  proper  to  mention  the  principal  publica- 
tions by  which  he  has  been  guided  in  the  composition  of  his  work. 
We  will  quote,  in  the  first  place,  "  The  Rebellion  Record,"  a  vast 
collection  of  reports,  narratives,  correspondence,  newspaper  extracts, 
prepared  at  intervals  during  the  war ;  it  requires  a  certain  degree  of 
familiarity  with  -the  subject  to  find  out  precisely  what  you  are  in 
search  of,  but  it  abounds  in  valuable  information.  The  ofiicial  docu- 
ments of  both  parties  are  almost  invariably  distinguished  for  their 
general  correctness,  although  frequently  too  pompous  in  their  style ; 
it  would  not  be  safe,  however,  to  rely  upon  the  statements  they  con- 
tain of  certain  conditions  of  affairs,  except  when  they  bear  a  con- 
fidential character.  Unfortunately,  these  documents  are  far  from 
being  complete.  The  Navy  Department  of  the  Union  has  published 
the  reports  of  all  its  ofiicers  in  extenso ;  the  War  Department  has 
only  given  abstracts  of  the  reports  of  the  Secretary  and  the  com- 
mander-in-chief, and  only  the  full  reports  of  the  quartermaster-general, 
which,  in  a  statistical  point  of  view,  afford  some  curious  information. 
A  large  number  of  the  reports  of  both  parties  are  to  be  found  in  the 
"  Rebellion  Record ;"  there  were  published  besides,  in  Richmond,  in 
1864,  two  volumes  of  the  reports  of  General  Lee  and  his  subordinates, 
and  a  few  official  Confederate  documents  were  reprinted  in  New  York 
in  1865.  Among  the  numerous  documents  contained  in  the  Richmond 
archives,  subsequently  taken  to  Washington  after  the  war,  there  are 
several  of  which  the  author  possesses  copies,  for  which  he  is  indebted 
to  the  kindness  of  General  Grant.  All  the  depositions  received  by 
the  "  Joint  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War"  have  been  collect- 
ed into  nine  volumes  which,  among  interminable  repetitions,  present 
some  interesting  views  and  much  information  not  to  be  found  else- 
where. 

As  to  the  principal  works  which  the  author  has  consulted  l^esides 
these  different  collections,  he  will  simply  mention  their  titles,  begin- 
ning with  four  publications  from  which  he  has  borrowed  more  than  from 


APPENDIX.  639 

any  other ;  the  first  commends  itself  to  our  special  consideration  on 
account  of  the  conscientious  impartiality  with  which  it  was  written ; 
the  others,  by  the  judicious  care  with  which  their  respective  authors 
made  use  of  the  published  and  unpublished  documents  they  had  on 
hand.  These  are,  "The  Pictorial  History  of  the  Civil  War,"  by 
Mr.  Lossing;  "The  American  Civil  War,"  three  volumes;  "Life  of 
General  Grant,"  by  his  former  aide-de-camp,  General  Badeau,  of 
which  only  the  first  volume  has  appeared ;  the  two  books  of  Mr* 
Swinton,  entitled,  respectively,  "  Campaigns  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,"  one  volume,  and  "  The  Twelve  Decisive  Battles  of  the 
War,"  one  volume. 

To  continue  the  list  of  works  written  from  a  Union  point  of  view, 
we  will  mention,  without  attempting  to  classify  them,  "  History  of  the 
Rebellion,"  by  Tenney,  one  volume ;  "  Life  of  General  Grant,"  by 
Coppee,  one  volume ;  "  Life  of  General  Sherman,"  by  Bowman  and 
Irwin,  one  volume  ;  "  Thirteen  Months  in  the  Rebel  Army,''  by  Ste- 
venson, one  volume ;  "  The  Volunteer  Quartermaster,"  one  volume  ; 
"  History  of  the  United  States  Cavalry,"  by  Brackett,  one  volume ;  a 
large  number  of  technical  papers  in  the  "  American  Cyclopredia,"  a  work 
in  four  volumes ;  "  Political  History  of  the  Rebellion,"  by  McPher- 
son,  one  volume  ;  "  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  Raymond,  one  vol- 
ume ;  "  The  American  Conflict,"  by  Horace  Greeley,  two  volumes. 

Among  the  Confederate  publications  to  which  we  are  indebted  we 
must  mention,  above  all,  the  works  of  E.  A.  Pollard :  "  The  First, 
Second,  and  Third  Year  of  the  War,"  three  volumes,  "  The  Lost 
Cause,"  one  volume,  and  "  Lee  and  his  Lieutenants,"  one  volume ; 
the  works  of  J.  Esten  Cooke :  "  Life  of  General  Lee,"  one  volume, 
"Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson,"  one  volume,  and  "Wearing  of  the 
Gray,"  one  volume ;  and,  finally,  "  The  Southern  Generals,"  W.  P. 
Snow,  one  volume. 

The  number  of  works  published  by  Europeans  possessing  real  inte- 
rest is  very  limited  ;  it  will  be  enough  to  mention  the  remarkable 
work  of  M.  Vigo  Roussillion  on  "  The  Military  Power  of  the  United 
States,"  and  the  writings  of  three  officers  with  whom  the  author  had 
the  good  fortune  to  serve  in  the  campaign  against  Richmond  in  1862: 
"  History  of  the  War  of  Secession,"  by  the  Swiss  Federal  colonel  F. 
Lecomte,  two  volumes;  "  History  of  the  American  War,"  by  Lieu- 
tenant-colonel Fletcher  of  the  British  Guards,  three  volumes  ;  and 
"  Four  Years  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,"  by  General  Regis  de 
Trobriand,  two  volumes,  Paris,  1867.  This  last  work,  French  in  lan- 
guage, in  spirit,  and  in  the  place  of  its  publication,  possesses  at  the 


640  APPENDIX. 

"  Four  Years  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,"  by  General  E^gis  de 
Trobriand,  two  volumes,  Paris,  1867.  This  last  work,  French  in  lan- 
guage, in  spirit,  and  in  the  place  of  its  publication,  possesses  at  the 
same  time,  in  an  historical  point  of  view,  all  the  value  of  a  narrative 
■written  by  one  of  the  eye-witnesses  and  actors  in  the  great  American 
drama. 

We  shall  conclude  this  note  with  a  final  reference,  which  will  convey 
to  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  multitude  of  documents  of  varied  import- 
ance and  value  that  have  been  published  on  the  subject  of  which  we 
are  treating  ;  this  is  a  large  quarto  volume  entitled  "  Bartlett's  Litera- 
ture of  the  Eebellion,"  which  appeared  in  1866,  and  is  simply  a  cata- 
logue of  all  the  works  relating  to  the  civil  war ;  it  contains  more  than 
six  thousand  numbers,  and  during  the  last  six  years  the  quantity  of 
these  works  has  probably  doubled. 

In  the  succeeding  pages  of  our  history  we  shall  indicate  whatever 
sources  worthy  of  mention  we  may  have  occasion  to  consult  in  any 
subsequent  portion  of  the  narrative. 


END   OF  VOLUME  I. 


^.^ 


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